Tiarney Ritchwood, PhD

Dr. Ritchwood is a global behavioral health scientist and health equity researcher, this individual currently serves as a Tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences and Associate Director of Health Equity Research at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. With formal training as a clinical psychologist, her interdisciplinary approach integrates social and health sciences to examine how race, gender, and class influence health behaviors and outcomes, driving socio-structural change. Her primary focus is public health from a health equity perspective, emphasizing contextual factors that impact individual and population-level health beyond merely identifying problems.

She has led domestic and international studies, particularly focusing on syndemics among people of African descent in the Global South. Her methodological expertise includes qualitative and quantitative methods, experimental designs, randomized trials, Delphi methods, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses, enabling impactful research outcomes.

Previously, Dr. Ritchwood served as a Tenured Associate Professor at the Duke University School of Medicine, co-directing the Research Education and Training Core in the REACH Equity Center. Currently, as Principal Investigator, she lead five active NIH grants, including a New Innovator’s Award supporting pandemic preparedness and response in North Carolina (DP2MD017444). Hergroundbreaking work in Equitable Artificial Intelligence is demonstrated through NIMHD grants that leverage social innovation, community-based participatory research (CBPR), and AI to address infectious diseases among Black/African Americans (U01MD018306, R01MD019024).