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Giselle Corbie, MD, Director of the UNC Center for Health Equity Research and Kenan Distinguished Professor in the Department of Medicine, has been named the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at UNC-Chapel Hill.


Giselle Corbie-Smith, MD, MSc-Duke-Research-Blog
Giselle Corbie-Smith, MD, MSc

Dear Carolina Community:  

I am delighted to announce that Giselle Corbie has agreed to serve as the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs. Dr. Corbie is a Kenan Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Director of the Center for Health Equity Studies, and the Associate Provost for Rural Initiatives. We are excited to have a leader of Giselle’s caliber, character, and incredible competence join the office as we work together to advocate for and advance our faculty and strengthen our academic community.  

Dr. Corbie came to Carolina in 2000, after serving as the chief resident in internal medicine at Yale University and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Emory University. Giselle’s time at Carolina includes a wide array of teaching and research roles: faculty in Social Medicine, General Medicine, Epidemiology, and Biostatistics; a senior research fellow and co-director of the Program on Health Disparities at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research; and currently serving as Associate Director for Engagement Science at the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute. 

Giselle’s research focuses on addressing health inequities in underserved populations through community-engaged and patient-oriented research. For more than 25 years she has developed a successful, continuously funded independent research portfolio that has garnered awards from the National Institutes of Health and numerous foundations. All of that portfolio been composed of patient or community centered work, investigating the motivations of minorities to participate in research; addressing mental health in newly immigrated Latinas; evaluating HIV and cardiovascular risk reduction efforts in rural, African American communities; and developing new community engaged ethics frameworks. Her efforts have made her a leader in the field: she recently service as the President of the Society of General Internal Medicine, and in 2018 she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine. 

Giselle’s passion for research and engagement around health equity is infectious: In 2013 she not only founded but began serving as director for the UNC Center for Health Equity Research. The Center brings teams of scholars, community members, medical professionals, and other stakeholders together to advance health equity and improve health outcomes in underserved communities by fostering innovation and translational research. Under her leadership the CHER has grown to become a key convener and clearinghouse for equity-based education and capacity building across the state. Drawing faculty from across the University’s health affairs schools, the Center now employs a staff of over 70, has supported more than 100 student projects, and placed all 15 of its postdoctoral students in assistant professor and/or health leadership roles. In 2018 she began serving as an Associate Provost for Rural Initiatives, founding UNC Rural, a campus-wide entity dedicated to creating campus-rural partnerships to strengthen rural communities and to further advance equity across North Carolina.   

Those commitments to fostering healthier, stronger and more equitable communities across the state is abundantly apparent in her work with our faculty and University communities. She is a sitting member of the Chancellor’s Committee on History, Race, and a Way Forward. She is an award-winning mentor for students and junior faculty and has played an active role in shaping more equitable and better faculty advancement policy in the medical school. During their strategic planning process, she collaborated with colleagues to design what would become the Office of Inclusive Excellence in the School of Medicine. She has chaired multiple tenure committees and has served as a member of the School of Medicine’s promotion committees for associate and full professors. She has worked as a member of the University’s Advancement, Promotion, and Tenure Committee.  

She has a particular passion for supporting faculty development, a passion that is evident in her efforts as a co-investigator in the Clinical Scholars Program. Funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the groundbreaking program advances faculty professional development by delivering an integrated curriculum in leadership, equity, diversity and inclusion. The goal of the program is to provide mid-career faculty with the “mindset and skill set” to both advance their career aspirations and to advance health equity by engaging teachers, researchers and practitioners.  

Giselle earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at Cornell University, a Master of Science in clinical research at Emory University, and her MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York.  

The mantra of our office is that the best way we can serve our students and our state is to foster an excellent, inclusive, and committed academic community. Giselle is an incredible addition to our team, and an indispensable part of achieving that goal. We are proud to have a leader with Giselle’s depth of experience and commitment join us in serving the University community. And we are delighted to work with a scholar and person who so fully evidences a commitment to excellence, equity, and ultimately to making the world a more just, more humane, and better place.  

I can say that the highest confidence that we believe that Dr. Corbie will advance our office’s mission of serving our students and state by being good stewards of and advocates for one of the nation’s best faculties. 

Sincerely, 

Christopher Clemens , Provost and Chief Academic Officer