Angelou Center Selects Interim Associate Director

October 26, 2006

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Ronny A. Bell, Ph.D., M.S., associate professor of public health sciences-epidemiology and prevention at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, has been named interim associate director of the Maya Angelou Research Center on Minority Health.

Bell’s primary research interests are chronic disease prevalence, risk factors and prevention with particular emphasis on ethnic minority populations. He also serves as co-director of the Health Sciences Research Master’s Degree Program at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

He is a native of Robeson County and a member of the Lumbee Indian tribe. Bell received his bachelor’s degree in public health nutrition from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a doctorate in nutrition from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a master’s degree in epidemiology from Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Bell and his wife, Natalie, live in Greensboro with their three sons.

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Media Contacts: Jim Steele, jsteele@wfubmc.edu, Karen Richardson, krchrdsn@wfubmc.edu, or Shannon Koontz, shkoontz@wfubmc.edu, at (336) 716-4587.

Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is an academic health system comprised of North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Wake Forest University Health Sciences, which operates the university’s School of Medicine. The system comprises 1,187 acute care, psychiatric, rehabilitation and long-term care beds and is consistently ranked as one of “America’s Best Hospitals” by U.S. News & World Report.

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