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Some have close ties to USC; others are newcomers to our school
September 2, 2009
Swann Arp Adams
Roger D.
Newman-Norlund
Deborah Billings
David C. Volz
Four new assistant professors with a wide range of academic interests are the latest tenure-track faculty members to join the Arnold School of Public Health.
They are:
Dr. Swann Arp Adams, winner of the 2008 Gerry Sue Arnold Alumni Award, joined the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. This is a joint appointment with the College of Nursing.
Dr. Deborah Billings, who has a joint appointment with the USC Women’s and Gender Studies Program, joined the Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior.
Dr. Roger D. Newman-Norlund, who spent the last four years as a postdoctoral researcher in the Netherlands, joined the Department of Exercise Science.
Dr. David C. Volz, a former U.S. EPA STAR Graduate Fellow at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University, joined the Department of Environmental Health Sciences.
Adams is a native of Knoxville, TN who earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at Furman University in 1994 and a master’s in biomedical sciences from the University of Tennessee in 1996.
After her husband accepted a job teaching school in the Columbia area, she returned to South Carolina to earn her doctorate in epidemiology from the Arnold School in 2003.
Since then she has worked as the principal investigator and co-investigator for many externally-funded research projects in cancer health disparities. Contact her at (803) 576.5620 or swann.adams@sc.edu.
Deborah Billings’ career interests have focused on sexual and reproductive health issues in Africa and Latin America, particularly Mexico.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh in 1987, her master’s degree in sociology from the University of Michigan in 1991 and her doctorate in sociology, also from UMICH, in 1995.
She has been a longtime researcher and coordinator for Ipas, a nonprofit organization that works around the world to increase women’s ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights, and to reduce abortion-related deaths and injuries. Currently she is chair of the South Carolina Hispanic/Latino Health Coalition. Contact her at (803) 777-3909 or BILLINDL@mailbox.sc.edu.
Newman-Norlund was born in Buffalo, NY where he developed a lifelong love of science. In 1999, he earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from SUNY, Geneseo and a doctorate in cognitive neuroscience from Dartmouth College in 2005.
He was a post doctoral fellow at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands from 2005-2009.
Roger and his wife Sarah returned stateside with two new family additions, Darwin, 3, and Olivia, 1. Roger hopes to combine his expertise in functional and structural neuro-imaging with interests in exercise, sports and rehabilitation. Contact him at (803) 777-7167 or rnorlund@mailbox.sc.edu.
Volz is no stranger to USC. He earned a bachelor’s degree in marine science here in 1999 and a master’s from the Arnold School where he also received an Outstanding Graduate Student Award.
He earned his doctorate from Duke University in 2006 and for the past three years worked as a toxicologist for Syngenta, a global agribusiness conglomerate based in Basel, Switzerland.
Voltz’s research interests at the Arnold School include the integrated use of small fish models (zebrafish), in vitro models (human cell lines), and computational models for prediction of environmentally mediated human diseases. Contact him at 777-0218 or volz@mailbox.sc.edu.
Earlier this year P. Phuong "Phoenix" Doe and Denise Finneran also joined the school as tenure track professors. See article from March.
