Colleen McBride, PhD, joins Emory's Rollins School of Public Health as the Rollins professor and chair in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, effective July 2014.

A renowned researcher in behavioral epidemiology, McBride's research focuses on developing innovative public health interventions to promote risk-reducing behaviors.  She has focused her research on investigating ways that genetic information can best be used to Inform and motivate healthy behaviors. 

"We are truly excited and fortunate to have Dr. McBride join Rollins’ Behavioral Sciences and Health Education department," says James W. Curran, MD, MPH, dean of the Rollins School of Public Health.  "Dr. McBride is an exceptionally strong and thoughtful researcher who will not only continue to make significant contributions in her field, but will also substantially advance the department and the Rollins School of Public Health."

McBride comes to Emory from the National Human Genome Research Institute, where she has served as founding chief and senior investigator of the Social and Behavioral Research Branch.  She held academic positions at the University of Washington as well as Duke University Medical Center where she served as Chief of the Division of Prevention Research in the Department of Community and Family Medicine.  At Duke, she was also director of the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program.

McBride held adjunct faculty appointments in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of North Carolina and the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She earned her doctoral degree in Behavioral Epidemiology from the University of Minnesota and completed post-doctoral studies at Group Health Cooperative in Seattle.