Leadership Team

Dr. Sharrelle Barber is a social epidemiologist whose research focuses on the intersection of "place, race, and health." Dr. Barber is and Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and director of The Ubuntu Center on Racism, Global Movements, and Population Health Equity at the Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health. Dr. Barber leverages state-of-the-art epidemiologic cohort studies to examine how neighborhood-level structural determinants of health such as concentrated economic disinvestment and racial residential segregation impact cardiometabolic risk factors and cardiovascular disease onset among Blacks in the Southern United States and Brazil. Her work is framed through a structural racism lens, grounded in interdisciplinary theories (e.g. Ecosocial Theory and Critical Race Theory) and employs various advanced methodological techniques including multilevel modeling and longitudinal data analyses. Through empirical evidence, her work seeks to document how racism becomes "embodied" through the neighborhood context and how this fundamental structural determinant of racial health inequities can be leveraged for transformative change through anti-racist policy initiatives.

Dr. Allana T. Forde is a Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigator and an NIH Distinguished Scholar in the Division of Intramural Research of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). She received her BA in Child Development and Community Health from Tufts University, MPH in Epidemiology from George Washington University, and PhD in Epidemiology from Columbia University. Dr. Forde’s research focuses on the stressors that are more frequently experienced by racial and ethnic minority populations and the impact that these stressors have on health and health disparities across the life course. Her research also explores the heterogeneity within and between these groups to identify protective and adaptive factors that may explain why certain groups do not develop the adverse health outcomes arising from stress.

Dr. Mario Sims is a Full Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and Chief Science Officer of the Jackson Heart Study. He is the recent Interim Director and Principal Investigator of the Jackson Heart Study and has a background in Medical Sociology and Social Epidemiology.

His current research focuses on the extent to which social and psychosocial factors such as stress, racial discrimination and segregation influence cardiovascular disease (CVD) disparities. He has been the PI of NIH funding related to the social determinants of health and resilience and CVD among African American adults. Dr. Sims has published over 200 papers in scientific peer-reviewed journals and has given over 200 professional presentations at scientific conferences, symposia, and grand rounds.

Jessica Whitley is a Project Manager with the Urban Health Collaborative at the Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health. She received her BA in Biological Sciences from Wellesley College and MPH from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.