Deshira Wallace

I am a Black woman, born and mostly raised in a Caribbean coastal city of Colón in the Republic of Panamá. Additionally to living in Panamá, I spent time living across the United States and even South Korea. All these experiences allowed me to observe how identities, such as race and ethnicity, change (or not) across borders and influenced my decision to go to graduate school and pursue public health. 

 

I am currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Behavior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health. My research is focused on examining the effects of structural and psychosocial stressors on cardiovascular type 2 diabetes prevention and management among US Latines and in Latin America. Further, I use an intersectionality framework to examine risk factors, coping behaviors, and chronic health outcomes, particularly among Latines and Latin Americans of African descent in an aim to further unpack health inequities within the Latine and Latin American population. I earned my Ph.D. in Health Behavior from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and my BA in Environmental Science and Policy from Duke University.