Heather M. Highland

Heather M. Highland, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina's Gillings School of Global Public Health. Her research focuses on the shared genetic epidemiology of chronic diseases, particularly diabetes and its complications, with a strong emphasis on expanding biomedical research to benefit ancestrally diverse populations through her involvement in the Population Architecture using Genomics and Epidemiology (PAGE) study. She holds a PhD in Human and Molecular Genetics from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and a BS in Biology from Trinity University. Her work includes developing analytical tools for complex datasets in genetic studies. Contact her at Heather.Highland@unc.edu.