Uma Shankar
Uma Shankar is a research associate in the Center for Environmental Modeling for Policy Development within the UNC Institute for the Environment. Her research focuses on air quality and its climate impacts.
female scientists
Susan Girdler
Susan Girdler is a psychiatry and psychology professor and director of the UNC Psychiatry Stress and Health Research Program within the UNC School of Medicine. Her research focuses on reproductive mood disorders in women. She helped create the Women in Science Deserve Opportunities and Mentoring (WISDOM) program and is president of the Association for Professional Women in Medical Sciences.
Rukmini Deva
Senior Rukmini Deva is a SURF recipient and undergraduate researcher in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences majoring in biology, with a minor in religious studies. Her research focuses on monastic silence — a lifetime of voluntary commitment to silence and/or “stillness.” Last summer, she traveled to a Trappist monastery in South Carolina and a Yogoda ashram in India to explore why silence is used as a vehicle of deeper thought and spiritual experience.
Jane Weintraub
Jane Weintraub served as the dean of the UNC School of Dentistry from July 2011 through June 2016. Upon exiting, she returns to her joint appointment with School of Dentistry’s Department of Dental Ecology and the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Her research has helped shape scientific guidelines regarding the sealants and fluoride that have become a part of mainstream dental and public health practices.
Nancy Rodriguez-Bunn
Nancy Rodriguez-Bunn is a mathematics professor within the UNCCollege of Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses on mathematical modeling and analysis to shed light on topics like urban crime, segregation, cell movement, and ecology.
Laura Villa-Torres
Laura Villa-Torres is a PhD student studying health behavior in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. Her research focuses on how immigrant communities keep their resilience and sustainable community-based interventions that improve their health and lives.
Kriti Sharma
Kriti Sharma is a PhD candidate working in the Shank Lab. Her research focuses on understanding the microorganisms in soil that are quietly working to make life above ground possible. As a UNC microbiome researcher, she recently represented the university at the White House’s National Microbiome Initiative launch.
Molly Fisher
Senior Molly Fisher is an undergraduate researcher in UNC-Chapel Hill’s Geophysics and Climatology Lab. Over the past three years, Fisher has modeled renewable energy sources across North America based off of energy production and cost. She is currently studying the potential of biomass as an energy resource in northeastern North Carolina.
Stephanie Zerwas
Stephanie Zerwas is an assistant professor of psychiatry within the UNC Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders. Her research focuses on genetic risk factors, early screening and detection, and using technology to improve treatment for eating disorders.
Tojan Rahhal
Tojan Rahhal is a fourth-year PhD student studying pharmaceutical sciences in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Under the guidance of Joseph DeSimone, her research focuses on the delivery of therapeutics to the lungs. She is also the chair of UNC’s Women in Science group.