Faculty

Since its inception under Dr. Harry Guess, the Pharmacoepidemiology at UNC has attracted world-class faculty members and doctoral students. Our current core of four faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and doctoral students has unparalleled expertise in pharmacoepidemiology and comparative effectiveness research, including advanced methods and meta-analysis of healthcare data. Our students are selected for the combination of scientific, intellectual, and management skills that will make them future leaders in healthcare.

Jennifer Lund, MSPH, PhD, FISPE is Professor of Epidemiology, incoming Director of the Center for Pharmacoepidemiology, and Director of Data Strategy and Education with the UNC Lineberger’s Cancer Information and Population Health Resource (CIPHR). Dr. Lund conducts pharmacoepidemiologic and health services research, with applications in cancer, aging, and the environment. The overall objective of her work is to generate robust evidence on the delivery and effectiveness of healthcare interventions that will improve decisions made by policymakers, providers, and patients and their families. Dr. Lund’s research program draws upon clinical trials, large healthcare databases, publicly available surveys, and environmental data, along with advanced epidemiologic methods to evaluate: (1) the delivery of high-quality care, (2) the effectiveness and safety of treatment, and (3) the role of environmental exposures on treatment access, adherence, and outcomes. She is an Associate Editor for Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, as well as an Editorial Board member for the Journal of Geriatric Oncology.

Evan Mayo-Wilson, MPA, DPhil is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology. His research focuses on (1) evaluating the benefits and harms of health interventions (pharmacological and behavioral); (2) improving methods for clinical trials and systematic reviews; and (3) developing methods and interventions to increase research transparency and openness. He the Scientific Director for peer review of PCORI Research Reports (contracted by Origin Editorial) and Associate Editor for Systematic Reviews for the American Journal of Public Health. He has co-authored multiple guidelines for reporting clinical trials and systematic reviews, including the TOP Guidelines, PRISMA 2020, CONSORT-SPI, CONSORT Harms, and JARS. He currently serves on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) committee “Review of Relevant Literature Regarding Adverse Events Associated with Vaccines”. He previously served on the American Psychological Association (APA) Advisory Steering Committee for Development of Clinical Practice Guidelines, and he co-authored three National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE, UK) guidelines for the identification and treatment of mental health problems. He also served as a member of the NIH Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) working group to improve NIH policies and procedures for reporting the methods and results of clinical trials of behavioral interventions, and as a member of the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) working group to develop standards for comparator selection in trials of behavioral and social interventions.

Til Stürmer, MD, MPH, PhD, FISPE is Nancy A. Dreyer Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of Epidemiology, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. Dr. Stürmer has led the pharmacoepidemiology program and the CPE since joining UNC in 2008 and until becoming chair in 2018 (until 2024). As an internist and pharmacoepidemiologist, he has a dual focus in epidemiologic methods and clinical epidemiology. Dr. Stürmer’s early research in epidemiologic methods includes the development of more efficient matching strategies in genetic epidemiology and measurement error correction methods in case-control studies. Since 2003 he has focused on the value of propensity scores (PSs) for pharmacoepidemiologic studies in older adults (mainly: Medicare beneficiaries) based on his ongoing R01 from the National Institute on Aging (over 100 publications). Dr. Stürmer also developed a novel integration of ideas from measurement error correction and propensity score analysis to improve control for confounding by medication-use choices using data from validation studies. His research in clinical epidemiology covers many topics including nephro- and cardiovascular toxicity of paracetamol and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs; chemoprevention of colorectal cancer and dementia with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs; determinants of antibiotic resistance; and hormone therapy, pain and sub-clinical inflammation in osteoarthritis. His current focus is on antidiabetics in older patients with type 2 diabetes.

Mollie Wood, MPH, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology. Dr. Wood’s research focuses on the risks and benefits of medication use during pregnancy. She is particularly interested in medications used to treat chronic illness, psychiatric illness, and pain. Her research program currently includes projects focused on the role of pharmacogenomics in studies of prenatal exposure to psychotropic medications, treatment of chronic hypertension, migraine, and depression during pregnancy, and target trial emulation methodology. Much of her research is conducted using large administrative databases in the US and Scandinavia, as well as electronic health records in the UNC Health system.

Affiliated Emeritus Faculty

The following faculty have shaped the Center over many years and remain associated with it as emeritus affiliates.

Michele Jonsson Funk, PhD, FISPE, is Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology. She served as Director of the Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and head of the pharmacoepidemiology program from 2018-2026. During 22 years on faculty in the UNC Department of Epidemiology, her research focused on the intersection of pharmacoepidemiology and methods for estimating valid effects in real world data. Her methodologic expertise includes rigorous estimation of drug effects using non-experimental data, evaluation of treatment effect heterogeneity, implementation of propensity scores, doubly robust estimators, causal inference methods, and data linkage approaches. Her applied research spans a number of substantive areas including cardiovascular disease, cancer, infectious disease, and women’s health including effects of prenatal drug exposures on pregnancy outcomes. Michele leads the Intermediate Pharmacoepidemiology pre-conference course at the annual meeting of the International Society of Pharmacoepidemiology (ISPE). She has served as a member of ISPE’s Board of Directors, on the CIOMS Working Group XIII on Real-World Data and Real-World Evidence in Regulatory Decision Making, on FDA Advisory Committees, and as a consultant to the FDA.

Charles Poole, MPH, ScD, is Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology. In over 40 years as an epidemiologist, he has worked in government, contract research, consulting, and academia.  Spreading from his roots in environmental epidemiology, Dr. Poole has collaborated, published, taught and lectured widely on a broad range of methodologic issues in nearly every substantive area of epidemiologic research. Topics of sustained interest include applied interpretation of statistical measures in testing and estimation, case-control study design, systematic review and meta-analysis, and the value of absolutes over ratios and proportions in the estimation of public health effects.