Part 3: Applying What You’ve Learned - A Review of Case-Based Examples of Community Engagement in Genetics Research

Dr. Sula Hood is a Senior Research Scientist in the Center for Communication and Engagement Research at RTI International. She is also an adjunct faculty member at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. Dr. Hood has expertise in designing, implementing, and evaluating public health programs and interventions. Her professional experience includes over 15 years of leading community engaged research studies, with a focus on advancing health equity and improving outcomes among minority and underserved populations. Dr. Hood holds an interest in understanding social network influences on health information sharing and genomic literacy within families. Her research has involved partnering with community stakeholders to deliver family health history education in innovative community contexts, such as intergenerational African American family reunions. Dr. Hood completed a guest researcher residency at the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and she is an invited member of the CDC National Family Health History Working Group.

Dr. Hood currently serves as a Co-Investigator on RTI's Engagement and Retention Innovator award from the NIH All of Us Research Program. In this role, she utilizes co-creation approaches to collaborate with community stakeholders to inform the development of culturally relevant strategies that increase All of Us engagement among populations underrepresented in biomedical research.

Julianne O’Daniel is an Associate Professor and Director of Genetic Counseling in the Department of Genetics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her undergraduate degree in Biology from UNC Chapel Hill and her master’s degree in Genetic Counseling from the University of Pittsburg. She is board certified by the American Board of Genetic Counseling. Julianne’s career in genomic medicine has spanned across clinical, laboratory, and research perspectives.  She has published 50+ peer-reviewed articles and multiple book chapters with a continual focus on improving clinical access, and broad integration of genomic medicine applications for all populations. As such, she has had the pleasure of engaging with and learning from community and patient stakeholders. 

Dr. Landstrom is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Cell Biology at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina.  He is a pediatric cardiologist with expertise in heritable arrhythmias and cardiomyopathies.  He leads an NIH-funded basic-translational program which studies how heritable arrhythmias, cardiomyopathies, and congenital heart disease develop with a goal of developing new therapies to treat these life-threatening diseases.  He also leads a clinical research program dedicated to predicting those at risk of developing heritable cardiac disease using tools such as population-based genomic risk prediction.