Rebecca Fry

Dr. Rebecca Fry is the Carol Remmer Angle Distinguished Professor in Children's Environmental Health and Chair of the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health. She also serves as Director of the Institute for Environmental Health Solutions (IEHS) and holds a joint appointment as Research Professor in the Department of Pediatrics. Her leadership spans multiple academic and research initiatives focused on environmental health.

• PhD in Biology, Tulane University, 2000
• MS in Biology, Tulane University, 1997
• BS in Biology, William Smith College, 1995

Dr. Fry's research focuses on understanding how environmental exposures to toxic substances are associated with human disease, with particular emphasis on genomic and epigenomic perturbations. Her lab employs toxicogenomic and systems biology approaches to identify key molecular pathways linking environmental exposure to disease development. A major current focus examines prenatal exposure to environmental contaminants including arsenic, cadmium, and perfluorinated chemicals, aiming to understand the molecular mechanisms by which early exposures lead to long-term health effects. Her work seeks to identify mechanisms of contaminant-induced disease and the basis for inter-individual disease susceptibility.

Analysis of Dr. Fry's recent publications reveals a strong emphasis on environmental contaminants' impact on child health and development, particularly examining how prenatal exposures to metals and PFAS affect epigenetic regulation and long-term health outcomes. Her research integrates epidemiological approaches with molecular techniques to identify biomarkers of exposure and effect. There's a clear progression in her work from basic mechanistic studies to population-level investigations with implications for public health policy and intervention strategies.

• NAS Committee on Inorganic Arsenic (2012, National Academy of Sciences)
• Teaching Innovation Award (2014, Gillings School of Global Public Health)
• Teaching Innovation Award (2012, Gillings School of Global Public Health)
• Newton Underwood Memorial Teaching Award (2011, UNC Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering)
• PopTech Science Public Leadership Fellowship (2010)
• Fellow, Aspen Cancer Conference (2009)
• Pfizer Scholar in Public Health (2009)

Dr. Fry has secured numerous research grants to support her work on environmental exposures and health outcomes, particularly focusing on vulnerable populations including pregnant women and children. She has mentored numerous graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in environmental health sciences, fostering the next generation of researchers in this critical field. Her collaborative approach is evident in her extensive list of multi-institutional research projects.

Dr. Fry leads the Fry Lab at UNC-Chapel Hill, which brings together interdisciplinary teams of toxicologists, epidemiologists, molecular biologists, and bioinformaticians. The lab is part of the broader Institute for Environmental Health Solutions, which she directs, creating a hub for innovative research on environmental health challenges. Her team employs cutting-edge genomic and epigenomic technologies to investigate environmental exposures and their health impacts.