I am an infectious diseases physician and social scientist. I am a Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Professor of Global Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. My research focuses on community engagement and prosocial behavior. For example, the pay-it-forward model, an approach that combines financial and social nudges to encourage individuals to use health services (e.g., sexually transmitted disease testing, vaccinations) while promoting generosity. Participants receive a health service at no cost and are then invited to contribute—either financially or socially—toward providing the same service to others. Our research team has received recognition from the World Health Organization (Re-Boot Youth Health Award), the World Health Summit (Innovation Challenge) and the US NIH (Mid-Career Award).
Affiliations
Teaching
Crowdsourcing for capacity building: Crowdsourcing has been used to develop formal curricula, build capacity, and create educational materials. I am the PI or MPI on several studies that use crowdsourcing as a tool for capacity building.
Research mentorship: I have a long-standing interest in cultivating research mentorship. In partnership with TDR, I developed a participatory
intervention to increase the number of women applicants to a WHO mid-career fellowship. In addition, I co-led the development of a practical guide
on institutionalizing research mentorship in low and middle-income countries. The resulting HERMES (Health Research Mentorship in low and middle
income countrieS) guide has been downloaded over 1000 times and is the most viewed publication on the TDR website. I have a special interest in
mentoring and am supported by an NIAID K24 grant to mentor junior researchers related to infectious diseases and crowdsourcing.
Diagnostics training: I am the Co-Director of the Advanced Course on Diagnostics at the Merieux Foundation in Annecy, France. This is an intensive
week-long training program focused on building the next generation of leaders in diagnostics.
Research
Syphilis social epidemiology: Syphilis causes substantial morbidity and mortality, but is neglected across many health systems. I helped to describe
the increasing burden of syphilis in China, accelerating the development of China’s national syphilis control and prevention plan (PMC3103765). I was
the PI on a US NIH K01 grant focused on better understanding syphilis in the social context of China and my ongoing K24 grant focuses on syphilis
prevention.
Collective intelligence in medicine and public health: Given the need for innovative sexual health services, I formed a program called SESH – social
entrepreneurship to spur health. This research group uses crowdsourcing and related collective intelligence approaches to improve health. Our team
has organized 232 collective intelligence projects, including crowdsourcing open calls, designathons, co-creation activities, and other participatory
approaches. SESH was recognized by WHO/TDR program as one of the top 24 global innovators as part of the social innovation in health initiative. I
led the development of a WHO/TDR/SESH practical guide on crowdsourcing in health and health research (TDR/STRA/18.4.). I was the PI, along with
Chongyi Wei, on an NIH NIAID R01 study that used collective intelligence to spur HIV self-testing. This spurred subsequent collective intelligence
studies in Nigeria, including an NICHD UG3/UH3 grant, one NHLBI R01 grant, one NICHD UG1 grant, one NCI R01 grant, and one NCI U54 (all as MPI
with Drs. Iwelunmor and Ezechi).
Pay-it-forward and contagious generosity: Our team used crowdsourcing to develop an intervention called pay-it-forward. Pay-it-forward has an
individual receive a free preventive service (an STD test or vaccine), then decided whether to support (either by donation or writing a message) a
subsequent person to receive the same service. Participants receive handwritten notes encouraging them to receive the service. I am lead PI on an
NIAID R01 (with Dr. Weiming Tang) exploring this approach.
Social innovation: I am part of the Social Innovation in Health Initiative (SIHI), a global network focused on social innovation in health research. Our
team has developed a social innovation checklist, assessed many social innovations, and helped people to learn more about social innovation. I co
lead the SIHI Fellowship program.
Selected Publications
