Global Health Grounded in Community

Nancy Messonnier is dean of the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and the Vaughn and Nancy Bryson Distinguished Professor in Public Health. She has more than 25 years of experience in leadership posts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and as the executive director for pandemic prevention and health systems at the Skoll Foundation.

Messonnier led the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and its response to a then-unknown respiratory disease in China in late 2019, which evolved into the COVID-19 pandemic. She was the CDC’s chief architect of the COVID-19 vaccine implementation program and she helped develop, evaluate and distribute COVID-19 vaccines across the United States.

The Well continued its series of Q&As with Carolina’s newest deans with Messonnier, covering topics from the UNC Gillings’ mission, global health, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

When asked about something she’s learned about Carolina since arriving, she exclaimed, “People really love the color blue!”

“I’m sort of joking, but I also find the devotion to Carolina blue symbolic of how much people love the University and how connected the school is with the state of North Carolina,” she continued. “There’s a sense of community here that isn’t just talk — it’s expressed in the way people act every day.”

Read the full Q&A…

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