UNC Rural announces Research and Engagement Award recipients for Fall 2024
December 18, 2024
The Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost is pleased to announce the recipients of the Fall 2024 Rural Research, Engagement and Advancement Fund, sponsored by UNC Rural and UNC Research. These awards recognize community-campus partnerships based in rural North Carolina led by faculty members supporting a wide range of community endeavors. Many of these projects are led or co-led by experts at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. This semester’s awardees are:
Community-Academic Partnerships for Farmworkers Health
- Rural Counties Served: Bladen, Duplin, Greene, Jones, Lenoir and Sampson
- Community-Campus Partners: Laura Villa Torres, Melissa Castillo and NC FIELD
- Increases their community partners’ capacity to address the environmental exposures and health issues that farmworkers experience through a co-developed joint research agenda.
Co-Creating Culturally Responsive Instructional Tools for Early Childhood Teacher Educators
- Rural Counties Served: Robeson
- Community-Campus Partners: Chih ing Lim, Camille Catlett, Jessica Amsbary, & Hsiu-wen Yang, Robeson Community College, Robeson County Partnership for Children, the Lumbee Tribe of NC, and UNC Pembroke
- Develops culturally responsive instructional materials for preparing current and future early childhood educators (ECEs) to more authentically support the rural children and families that they serve.
Enhancing Environmental Justice Leadership & Capacity
- Rural County Served: Caswell
- Community-Campus Partners: Courtney Woods, Lindsay Savelli and Anderson Community Group
- Works with the Anderson Community Environmental Justice Group (ACE) to create evaluation tools to assess the success of their water quality testing-related projects.
HPV Vaccination in Lumbee Youth
- Rural Counties Served: Robeson
- Community-Campus Partners: Ronny A. Bell, Children’s Health of Carolina (CHC), the Lumbee Tribe of NC
- Study designed to assess barriers and facilitators of HPV vaccination among parents of Lumbee youth and their care providers in Robeson County.
Strengthening the Nash and Edgecombe Youth Leadership Development Program
- Rural Counties Served: Edgecombe and Nash
- Lead Community-Campus Partner: Leah Frerichs, Samuel Baxter, Melvin Jackson, Kim Evans, Chauronda Morrison, Project GRACE, and PRIME Collective
- Provides summer internships to high school youth to map and understand strengths in their rural communities.
These award winners have demonstrated exceptional skill in relationship-driven collaboration, accountability to the community, honoring community expertise, and creativity and inclusion, resulting in tangible action and local impact.
In Spring 2024, UNC Rural also awarded these funds to several projects co-led by Gillings School experts, including “ECUIPPing Warren County Youth for EMPACT” (Amanda Northcross/Michael Fisher), “Helping Rural Pharmacists Overcome Buprenorphine Dispensing Barriers” (Delesha Carpenter), “Through the Lens of Recovery: Photovoice Initiative for Healing in Robeson County” (Alexandra Lightfoot) and “Unheard Voices: Supporting the Transition to Adulthood for Foster Youth in Duplin County” (Molly DeMarco).
Contact the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health communications team at sphcomm@unc.edu.
