Celette Sugg Skinner, Ph.D., is Professor and Inaugural Chair of the Department of Population & Data Sciences at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center – a Department with 32 primary-appointment PhD faculty members who generate $8M/yr (direct) in scientific grant funding. A pioneer in computer-tailored communications, Dr. Skinner has spent >30 years developing and testing innovative behavior-change interventions, working primarily among traditionally underserved groups. Her recent work focuses on multilevel interventions that meaningfully use electronic health records to identify patients in need of intervention, use clinically collected information to generate and deliver algorithm-driven tailored interventions, and track intervention outcomes. She is MPI for two NCI-funded UM1 “PROSPR” grants that are prospectively following >200,000 Dallas County safety-net patients through the entire cervical and colorectal cancer screening processes over more than a decade. Dr. Skinner, who holds the Parkland Community Medicine Professorship, joined UT Southwestern in 2007 as the founding Associate Director of Population Research for the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center. She previously served as Associate Director for Population Research for the Duke Cancer Institute. Before that, she was a member of the Siteman Cancer Center of Washington University in St. Louis (1993-1998) and the Indiana University Simon Cancer Center and Regenstrief Institute (1991-1993). Dr. Skinner received an M.A. in Communications Research from The Wheaton Graduate School and a Ph.D. in Health Behavior from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she is an Adjunct Professor in the Gillings School of Global Public Health and Chairs the Public Health Foundation Board.
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