January 15, 2018

Rebecca Fry, PhD,  professor and associate chair of environmental sciences and engineering at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and director of UNC’s Superfund Research Program, has been named Carol Remmer Angle Distinguished Professor of Children’s Environmental Health, effective December 2017.

Dr. Rebecca Fry (right) poses with Dr. Carol Angle in December 2017.

Dr. Rebecca Fry (right) poses with Dr. Carol Angle in December 2017.

Fry, who joined the Gillings School faculty in 2008, has focused her research on understanding the mechanisms by which environmental exposures are associated with human disease, with a particular interest in the ways such exposures result in genomic and epigenomic changes.

Her lab currently examines prenatal exposure to various types of metals, including arsenic, cadmium and lead. She also aims to understand the molecular mechanisms by which such early exposures are associated with long-term health effects in humans.

Fry earned a Bachelor of Science in biology, magna cum laude, from William Smith College and master’s and doctoral degrees in biology from Tulane University. She was a postdoctoral associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 2000 to 2002 and an MIT research scientist from 2002 to 2008.

She has been honored with several awards recognizing her outstanding teaching and scientific accomplishments.

She received the Gillings School’s Teaching Innovation Award in 2012 and 2014 and the Newton Underwood Memorial Teaching Award in 2011. In 2010, she received the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences’ Outstanding New Environmental Scientist (ONES) Award.

She is the recent recipient of a large grant funded by the National Institutes of Health under the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) initiative.

The Carol Remmer Angle Distinguished Professorship of Children’s Environmental Health was established by Carol Angle, MD, and her daughter, Marcia Angle, MD, both physicians who focused their practices on the health of women and children.

The senior Dr. Angle was a pediatrician, toxicologist, nephrologist and national expert on heavy metals and other toxicants. Marcia Angle earned a Master of Public Health degree in maternal and child health at the Gillings School in addition to a Doctor of Medicine.

Two Gillings School faculty members previously have held the professorship – Jonathan Kotch, MD, MPH, professor emeritus and former chair of maternal and child health and Amy Herring, ScD, former professor and associate chair of biostatistics.

“Dr. [Carol] Angle was a pioneer physician scientist whose work highlighting the harms of toxic metals on the well-being of children remains as relevant today as it did when first reported,” Fry said. “I am humbled and honored to have been named the Angle Professor in Children’s Environmental Health. I am excited to carry on the legacy of her groundbreaking discoveries.”


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Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: David Pesci, director of communications, (919) 962-2600 or dpesci@unc.edu

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