The Core Advisory Team serves as a sounding board for the Center for Women’s Health and Wellness. Core Advisory Team members have been carefully selected not only for what they bring individually but also for what they bring collectively in diversity of backgrounds, disciplines, and perspectives to effectively guide the Center’s activities. Their expertise includes both mental and physical health – span basic science, clinical and community engaged research approaches – and investigations of facilitators and barriers to healthy active living from biological, psychological and sociological perspectives. All possess a strong interest in pursuing interdisciplinary research in women’s health and wellness and mentoring the next generation of scholars. We are grateful that these individuals have agreed to invest their skills, resources and knowledge to help ensure the Center achieves its vision, mission and strategic initiatives and remains accountable to its core values.
Clint D. Allred, Ph.D.
Faculty Homepage
Lake Simpson Dickson Distinguished Professor, Department of Nutrition
Dr. Allred’s research interest is in the general area of chronic disease development in women. Specifically, he is interested in how female hormones influence the development of specific types of cancer. A goal of Dr. Allred’s research is to use this fundamental understanding of cancer development to intervene in women that might be at high risk of developing colon cancer. A second key research focus is understanding how environmental compounds, including those in the diet, mimic hormone activity in females and influence chronic disease.
Dr. Allred has served as a Principal Investigator on several grants funded by the National Institutes of Health and American Cancer Society. He has given numerous presentations to breast cancer survivor groups and served as the keynote speaker at several ACS sponsored events that raise money and awareness to support the study of cancer development and how to best support individuals whom have been diagnosed with the disease.
Sandra E. Echeverría, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Faculty Homepage
Associate Professor, Department of Public Health Education
As a social epidemiologist, Sandra’s research examines how built environment, immigrant, and socioeconomic determinants influence cardiovascular health, particularly in Latinx communities. She has a specific interest in understanding how the social environment reinforces health behaviors such as physical activity. Her current projects involve examining multi-level disparities in pre-diabetes risk, longitudinal changes in physical activity across race/ ethnicity, and how broader contexts such as work settings and state or local-level policies shape the health of immigrant groups.
Stefanie Milroy, M.Ph., CHES, CHC
Faculty Homepage
Director, HealthyUNCG
Stefanie is a graduate of UNCG where she received both her Bachelor of Science in Community Health Education (’04) and her Master of Public Health (’06). She is a Certified Health Education Specialist and certified health and wellness coach. As Director of HealthyUNCG, she supports UNCG employees in achieving the wellness they desire by providing wellness programs and opportunities for UNCG employees. Stefanie is an advocate for creating a culture of wellness for employees of UNCG and is one of the founding members of the now annual statewide worksite wellness conference for universities and community colleges, Making the Grade in Worksite Wellness, which she has gone on to host each year.
Stefanie also serves as a member of UNCG’s Workplace Health Network and faculty in Public Health Education’s post baccalaureate certificate in Worksite Wellness. In addition to teaching 2 courses in the program, Stefanie supervises several graduate students and interns each year, providing them with opportunity for research and practice within the workplace. Stefanie also connects students in the post bach certificate program to internship sites and opportunities across the state.
Lenka Shriver, Ph.D.
Faculty Homepage
Associate Professor, Department of Nutrition
Faculty Affiliate, Institute to Promote Athlete Health and Wellness
Lenka’s research is concentrated in the area of child and adolescent nutrition, obesity, and sports nutrition. Her research targets a variety of social, behavioral and environmental factors that impact dietary intakes and obesity risk among children, such as maternal feeding practices and attitudes related to food and weight. Her work in the area of sports nutrition is primarily focused on examining dietary intake, eating habits/attitudes, and body composition changes among high school and college athletes, with a particular focus on female athletes. She has delivered numerous nutrition education presentations and workshops to college, high school, as well as amateur athletic teams.
Laurie Wideman, Ph.D.
Faculty Homepage
Safrit-Ennis Distinguished Professor, Department of Kinesiology
Chair, UNCG Institutional Review Board – Office of Research Integrity
The overarching focus of Laurie’s research is the impact of exercise, disease and injury on the endocrine system. Under this umbrella, she often examines sex as a biological variable to understand: 1) exercise-induced alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis—specifically, growth hormone (GH), cortisol and IGF-1, 2) cardiometabolic (hormones & cytokines) risk factor development across the lifespan in different populations, and 3) sex-specific hormonal influences in injury and disease. She is most recently the principal investigator on the large NIH-funded project “Pathways from childhood self-regulation to cardiovascular risk in adolescence,” also known as RIGHT Track Health. She collaborates on multiple interdisciplinary NIH grant submissions and regularly mentors junior scholars on research and career development grants.