N.C. A&T Faculty Affiliates

Affiliate members – as of December, 2025

Anna Lee – Professor of Psychology and Associate Dean for Academic & Faculty Affairs

Cynthia Crawford - Professor & Associate Dean of Research & Innovation

  • Expertise: Impact of structural inequities (i.e., racism, sexism, discrimination, and stigma) on health and education outcomes among people of color.
  • Faculty Profile: TBA

Elimelda Ongeri – Professor and Dean

Roshonda Jones – Assistant Professor 

Robert Newman – Distinguished Professor

Ashley Sanderlin – Assistant Professor

Ray Samuel – Professor

Jerome Moulden ||  – Assistant Professor

 

Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi – Associate Professor 

Leila Hashemi-Beni– Associate Professor

Geleana Alston - Associate Professor – Leadership Studies and Adult Education

Kimberly Harper - Associate Professor and Chair

  • Expertise: rhetoric of health and medicine with an emphasis on the rhetoric of Black maternal health and mental health within Hip-Hop culture and health literacy app development using the BRHCC foundational tool.
  • Faculty Profile:https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/kimberly-harper/

Gerard Dumancas - Professor and Assoc Dean of Research/Program Innovation Honors College

  • Expertise: Development of novel spectroscopic and computational tools (chemometrics and bioinformatics) with a wide array of applications in edible oils, food science, and biomedical research. STEM Education
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/gerard-dumancas/ 

Joy Kennedy - Assistant Professor

  • Expertise: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), Clinical Education, Culturally Responsive Practices, HBCU Culture, Black Feminist Epistemology, Simulation Learning, Language & Literacy (inclusive of Health Literacy)
  • Faculty Profile: TBA

Janiya Williams - Program Director/Instructor, Human Lactation

  • Expertise: Health Disparities among Black Women/Mothers; Human lactation, Black maternal & child health, community health, health equity.

Sung-Jin Lee – Professor of Housing Research

  • Expertise: Housing and community needs for older adults aging in place, mixed methods, secondary data analysis with American Housing Survey.

Cassandra Germain – Associate Professor

LaBarron Hill – Assistant Professor

Zahra Fazli Khalaf – Assistant Professor

Kalynda C. Smith – Assistant Professor

  • Expertise: Social psychology with expertise in STEM education, identity development research, and impact of social media on health and weight management on Black Women’s health behaviors.
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/kalynda-smith/ 

Hannah Javidi – Assistant Professor

  • Expertise: behavioral research aimed at promoting healthy sexual beliefs and behaviors among adolescents via interventions to advance inclusion in sexual health by centering the needs and experiences of populations historically excluded from mainstream sex education and health promotion initiatives.
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/hannah-javidi/ 

Yemataw Wondie Yehualashet– Associate Professor

Ritika Rastogi – Assistant Professor 

  • Expertise: the impact of structural oppression on adolescent mental health, race-related coping, and socioemotional development. Her focus is on institutions and relationships, especially schools and peer ecologies, unpacking how they act as sites of both harm and possibility in shaping youth trajectories of resilience, resistance, and thriving. 

Matt Welhaf– Assistant Professor

  • Expertise: Cognitive psychology with a focus on understanding the day-to-day dynamics of cognition and how different mental and physical health factors affect cognition in healthy and clinical populations (e.g., mild cognitive impairment).
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/matthew-welhaf/ 

Marc Cook – Associate Professor Exercise Immunology

  • Expertise: Molecular Exercise Physiology and Immunology with expertise in clinical exercise interventions that assess the role of gut microbial biomarkers in cardiometabolic health and disease (Hypertension and Diabetes).
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/marc-cook/ 

Alexis (Lexy) Ganesh – Assistant Professor

  • Expertise: Encompasses the effects of exercise on aging brain health using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional MRI to investigate the effects of exercise on brain structure, brain function, and lower extremity musculature to understand the muscle-brain axis and improve exercise prescriptions to prevent Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/alexis-ganesh/ 

Brittany Ingram– Assistant Professor, Exercise Science

  • Expertise: Psychosocial aspects of sport-related concussion with a focus on how social determinants of health influence concussion disclosure and care-seeking behaviors, particularly among historically disadvantaged populations.
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/brittany-ingram/ 

Troy Purdom - Assistant Professor, Exercise Science 

Ryan Russell– Associate Professor, Exercise Science

  • Expertise: Quantification of early cardiometabolic pathophysiologies related to the onset and progression of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease/dementia, and identifying specific mechanisms whereby exercise reduces these risks or even reverses the pathophysiologies.
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/ryan-russell/ 

 Shaymaa Abousaad - Research Associate 

  • Expertise: Oxidative stress, mitochondria biogenesis, and gut microbiome research on modulating the expression of mediators of pathophysiological conditions such as cancer, diabetes, renal diseases, and neurodegenerative disease.

Stephanie Teixeira-Poit – Associate Professor of Sociology

Shuang Li – Assistant Professor of Sociology

  • Expertise: mixed-methods rural sociologist studying the influence social determinants of health (i.e., residential segregation on health), elderly farmers’ mental and cognitive health in the era of climate change, and dementia awareness, care and intervention in rural America.
  • Faculty Profile: TBA

Carmen Monico – Associate Professor of Social Work

Quincy Dinnerson – Associate Professor of Social Work

  • Expertise: social work education and technology, unconscious bias, Anti-Racism in social work practice, decolonized supervision practices, micro-aggressions and African American males, Afrocentric social work, and inclusive mental health treatment, assessment, practice, financial social work and sports social work.
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/quincy-dinnerson/ 

David Kondrat – Department Chair of Social Work and Sociology 

Erica Campbell – Associate Professor 

  • Expertise: Health and social inequities through community-based research and technology-enhanced interventions and education. With particular emphasis on health disparities, trauma, mental health, intimate partner violence, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS prevention and intervention, program evaluation, food insecurity, and mentorship among BIPOC communities.
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/erica-campbell/ 

Keith Coleman - Senior Lecturer and Associate Chair

Celeste Butts-Jackson – Assistant Professor

  • Expertise: exploring disparities related to the impact of environmental pollutants on reproductive health, chronic diseases, birth outcomes, and early life cardiometabolic health.

Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/celeste-butts-jackson/ 

Dakysha Moore-Onsumu – Associate Professor

  • Expertise: health disparities in the African American community with a focus on Sickle Cell Disease, HIV/AIDS, and women’s health issues within the context of mass and interpersonal communication messages. Dr. Moore also examines how faith-based institutions in the African American community can play a role in disseminating health information to their congregations.

Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/dakysha-moore-onsomu/ 

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Letycia Nuñez-Argote – Associate Professor

  • Expertise: occupational health related to musculoskeletal and psychosocial effects of the work environment on health professionals, particularly medical laboratory personnel. Dr. Nuñez-Argote also has an interest in the implementation of health management interventions that center the well-being of health workers, and on access to affordable, equitable, and appropriate health services for all patients.
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/letycia-nunez-argote/ 

Monisa Aijaz – Assistant Professor

  • Expertise: Equity-focused design, implementation, and evaluation of programs and policies for high-risk and vulnerable populations, particularly those at risk of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDoP).
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/monisa-aijaz/ 

James Kimani – Associate Professor

  • Expertise: health issues and outcomes such as maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, health systems strengthening, and social determinants of health and health seeking behavior among poor and vulnerable population groups.
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/james-kimani/ 

Department of Nursing

Meng Zhao – Associate Dean of Nursing

  • Expertise: healthy aging and enhancing the physical and mental well-being of community elders. community assessment research include the evaluation of the mental health of frontline nurse practitioners during the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Faculty Profile: TBA

Yvonne Ford – Assistant Professor

  • Expertise: Cardiovascular health of African American women who are breast cancer survivors and lifestyle interventions in this population. Genomic predictors of heart failure and epigenetics are also an area of interest.
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/yvonne-ford/ 

Dana Carthron – Associate Professor

  • Expertise: board-certified Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner. Her program of research focuses on chronic illness self-management among African Americans. Her expertise includes implementation science, health equity, public health, and community-based participatory research (CBPR).
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/dana-carthron/ 
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Shona D. Morgan – Professor of Management

Shyam Aravamudhan - Associate Professor – Nanoengineering

Christopher Doss - Associate Professor - Director, Mobile Health Interoperability Lab

Jean-Marie Mwiza - Assistant Professor - Foundational Science

  • Expertise: Cellular and molecular mechanisms of platelet signaling pathways in the context of diabetes and CVD, aiming to contribute to the development of novel diagnostics and therapies and improve existing strategies.
  • Faculty Profile: https://profiles.ncat.edu/en/persons/jean-marie-mwiza/ 

Crystal A. Cook-Marshall – Agriculture Extension

  • Expertise: In partnership with community-based organizations, she investigates and pilots accessible technology and universal design for sustainable farmer with a more recent focus on the whole farmer utilizing AI/machine learning as well as on community support models for farmers.