The School of Public Health is pleased to welcome five new faculty members to four of our academic departments.
James Holt, VMD, visiting associate professor of infectious diseases and microbiology, is steering committee chairman of the Pennsylvania One Health Consortium, whose mission is to improve the health and well-being of humans, animals, plants and the environment. Holt also serves as chief veterinarian for Keystone Farm Future, which is focused on economically sustainable farming. He received his degree in veterinarian medicine from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.
Vincent Kuuire, PhD, has been appointed associate professor of behavioral and community health sciences and director of the school’s Center for Global Health. Kuuire is a health geographer who focuses on the well-being, health care access, and health outcomes of minoritized populations. His goal is to generate insights to inform policy and contribute to the reduction of health inequities worldwide. He received his doctoral degree in geography from Western University in Ontario, Canada.
James Matuk, PhD, joins the School of Public Health as assistant professor of epidemiology. Matuk, who received his doctoral degree in statistics from The Ohio State University, provides statistical expertise for various research projects in the school’s Epidemiology Data Center. His areas of focus include longitudinal data analysis, statistical shape analysis, and Bayesian modeling. Prior to joining Pitt, he was a postdoctoral associate in statistical science at Duke University.
Phillip Schnarrs, PhD, professor of behavioral and community health sciences, is an LGBTQ+ health scholar with an emphasis in HIV prevention, behavioral and mental health, and the role of early life adversity and stress in shaping these experiences. His work spans population health studies, intervention trials and community engaged research. He is also focused on developing and testing interventions to address mental health and substance misuse among sexual and gender minorities. Schnarrs, a Pittsburgh native, is also co-director of the school’s Center for LGBT Health Research with faculty member Jamie Egan.
Natalie Smith, PhD, assistant professor of health policy and management, has research interests in simulation modeling and public health decision making, public health policy for chronic disease prevention and control, and the influence of social networks and the built environment on health. Smith received her MS in biostatistics and PhD in health policy and management from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In her prior position as a research associate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, she explored how economic evaluation and decision support methods can bolster evidence-informed policymaking.