Penny Gordon-Larsen is the University of North Carolina Vice Chancellor of Research. In this role, she develops, sets strategic direction, and provides support for UNC’s $1.12 billion research enterprise. She is responsible for research infrastructure, operations, and regulatory compliance, research development, research translation, and research communications, and strategic research partnerships. In addition, she oversees 13 pan-campus, inter-disciplinary research centers and institutes. And she works across campus with the University’s research deans, center/ and institute directors, and key institutional leaders to strategically advance Carolina’s research enterprise.

Prior to serving as the vice chancellor for research, Gordon-Larsen served as associate dean for research at Gillings, where she led research strategy for the nation’s top public school of public health.

Gordon-Larsen is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor in the nutrition department, which is jointly housed in the UNC School of Medicine and the UNC School of Global Public Health. She has been a Carolina faculty member since 2002. Her research focuses on the linkages between biology, behavior, and environment to inform efforts to prevent, manage, and treat obesity and associated cardiometabolic diseases. One line of her research is on the built environment and its role is creating barriers or supports for walking and other forms of physical activity.

Gordon-Larsen received her bachelor’s degree in psychology and anthropology from Tulane University and her master’s and doctoral degrees in Human Biology from the University of Pennsylvania. She has authored more than 270 scientific papers in leading peer-review journals. Her work has been cited over 102,000 times with an h-index of 86.