Gillings School names four to new schoolwide leadership roles

March 4, 2025

The Gillings School of Global Public Health announces the appointment of four new Schoolwide leaders, each of whom bring valuable expertise to their respective role. These appointments reflect the Gillings School’s commitment to collaborative teaching and learning through research, practice and service. 

Dr. Mark Holmes

Mark Holmes, PhD, will serve as the senior associate dean for faculty and staff affairs.

Holmes is a professor of health policy and management at the Gillings School and serves as the director of the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, where he leads the North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center.  

In the new senior associate dean role, he will lead initiatives to improve career trajectory, vitality and well-being for faculty and staff. He also will provide professional and career development resources, support faculty promotion and tenure processes, and foster leadership development across the School. 

With more than 25 years of experience in health policy research and teaching, Holmes’ expertise lies in rural health and health policies — particularly health care utilization and leveraging administrative datasets to assess area-level health care access, utilization and disease burden. 

Dr. Alexia Kelley

Alexia Kelley, PhD, will serve as the interim associate dean for research.

Kelley is the primary contact supporting day-to-day research activities at Gillings. In her role as interim associate dean for research, she will work with other Gillings School leaders to develop strategic research priorities, foster collaborations both within and outside of Carolina, and enhance the School’s research portfolio by supporting grant applications.  

She also will play a crucial role in advocating for the research mission of the Gillings School and will oversee the Center for Generative AI in Public Health, ensuring that Gillings remains at the forefront of innovative research and discovery. 

Prior to joining the Gillings School, Kelley was the project manager in UNC-Chapel Hill’s Office of Research Development, where she fostered interdisciplinary research in various areas of strategic focus for the campus. 

Elizabeth French

Elizabeth French, MA, will serve as the senior associate dean for strategy.

French, who has been affiliated with the Gillings School for almost 25 years, currently serves as the associate dean for strategic initiatives. In this role, she has led numerous Schoolwide strategic planning processes; has facilitated implementation for many of those strategies; has directed the Dean’s Office, and has facilitated short- and long-term issues management, among numerous other functions. Over the past two years, she also has taken on executive management of several additional Gillings units, including Strategic Analysis and Business Intelligence, Innovation and, most recently, Communications and Marketing.

Moving forward, she also will liaise with Academic Affairs, working closely with that team on strategy and problem solving. French’s elevation to senior associate dean for strategy, effective February 28, is in recognition of these and other additional responsibilities.

Dr. Dana Rice

Dana Rice, DrPH, will serve as the associate dean for academic affairs.

Rice is an associate professor, public health practitioner and researcher specializing in public health leadership and community engagement through a health equity, social justice and human rights lens. Her primary focus is on integrating public health and correctional health systems and examining the impact of mass criminalization and incarceration on public health.  

In this role, Rice will oversee curricular operations, assist with accreditation processes and collaborate with School leadership on curriculum strategy, ensuring that programs align with evolving public health challenges and accreditation requirements. 

Rice has been recognized for her excellence in teaching, receiving the student-nominated Award for Excellence in Teaching and Innovation and the peer-nominated Delta Omega Faculty Award, and being named a UNC Equity in Teaching Fellow. Prior to joining Gillings, she spent 20 years in public, private and nonprofit sectors, with her most recent work dedicated to implementing and evaluating an HIV/STD screening program in a large urban jail and training graduate public health and medical students in applied public health practice. 

Effective March 1 and continuing through June 30, 2025, Laura Linnan, ScD, will step back from her role overseeing Academic and Student Affairs to serve as senior advisor to Nancy Messonnier, MD, Gillings School dean and Bryson Distinguished Professor in Public Health. In that role, she will continue to oversee appointments, promotion and tenure activities within the School and assist with the transitions of new leaders, as well as other special projects.   

Contact the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health communications team at sphcomm@unc.edu.