Stephanie M. Engel, PhD

About

Dr. Engel is an expert in Perinatal and Reproductive Epidemiology, and Children’s Environmental Health. She serves as Deputy Director of the Center for Environmental Health and Susceptibility (CEHS), Director of the UNC Center for Early Life Exposure and Neurotoxicity, and Associate Director for Population Science at the UNC Biomedical Research Imaging Center. She has a distinguished academic record of research, with over 150 publications and greater than $25M in PI-led extramural funding. As the co-Director of the NIEHS-funded T32, she works to recruit trainees into environmental health sciences, oversees the training of 23 predoctoral and 5 postdoctoral fellows across three departments in the Gillings School of Global Public Health, and connects trainees with ongoing environmental health sciences (EHS) research inside and outside UNC. 

Dr. Engel’s research focus is to understand the impact of xenobiotic exposures on pregnancy outcome and child development. She has led an NIMHD-funded R01 on the vaginal microbiome and racial disparities in preterm birth, and has substantial expertise on phthalate exposures during pregnancy and early life and their relationship with pregnancy outcome and child development, having led multiple R01s in this area as well as an EPA Early Life Center grant. In 2017 she was nominated by her students and awarded the John E. Larsh Jr. Excellence in Mentoring Award. 

Dr. Engel is the lead instructor of “Advanced Methods in Perinatal and Pediatric Epidemiology" (EPID 853).

Stephanie Engel in the Gillings News

Honors and Awards

John E. Larsh Jr. Excellence in Mentoring Award
Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Representative Courses

EPID 853 “Advanced Methods in Perinatal and Pediatric Epidemiology”

Key Publications

Gestational thyroid hormone concentrations and risk of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study. Engel SM, Villanger GD, Herring A, Nethery RC, Drover SSM, Zoeller RT, Meltzer HM, Zeiner P, Knudsen GP, Reichborn-Kjennerud T, Longnecker MP, Aase H. (2023). Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. , 37(3), 218-228.

Associations Between Prenatal Urinary Biomarkers of Phthalate Exposure and Preterm Birth: A Pooled Study of 16 US Cohorts.  Welch BM, Keil AP, Buckley JP, Calafat AM, Christenbury KE, Engel SM, O'Brien KM, Rosen EM, James-Todd T, Zota AR, Ferguson KK, Alshawabkeh AN, Cordero JF, Meeker JD, Barrett ES, Bush NR, Nguyen RHN, Sathyanarayana S, Swan SH, Cantonwine DE, McElrath TF, Aalborg J, Dabelea D, Starling AP, Hauser R, Messerlian C, Zhang Y, Bradman A, Eskenazi B, Harley KG, Holland N, Bloom MS, Newman RB, Wenzel AG, Braun JM, Lanphear BP, Yolton K, Factor-Litvak P, Herbstman JB, Rauh VA, Drobnis EZ, Sparks AE, Redmon JB, Wang C, Binder AM, Michels KB, Baird DD, Jukic AMZ, Weinberg CR, Wilcox AJ, Rich DQ, Weinberger B, Padmanabhan V, Watkins DJ, Hertz-Picciotto I, Schmidt RJ. (2022). JAMA Pediatr. , 176(9), 895-905.

Race, the Vaginal Microbiome, and Spontaneous Preterm Birth. Sun S, Serrano MG, Fettweis JM, Basta P, Rosen E, Ludwig K, Sorgen AA, Blakley IC, Wu MC, Dole N, Thorp JM, Siega-Riz AM, Buck GA, Fodor AA, Engel SM. (2022). mSystems., 7(3), e0001722.

Prenatal Phthalates, Maternal Thyroid Function, and Risk of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort. Engel SM, Villanger GD, Nethery RC, Thomsen C, Sakhi AK, Drover SSM, Hoppin JA, Zeiner P, Knudsen GP, Reichborn-Kjennerud T, Herring AH, Aase H.  (2018). Environ Health Perspect. , 126(5), 057004.

Education