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Director

Lei Zhang, PhD, MBA

Dr. Lei Zhang is professor and associate dean for research and scholarship in School of Nursing at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). He is a member of the Data & Methods Workgroup and the Steering Committee for the Community Firearm Violence Prevention (CFVP) network funded by NIH. He also holds the secondary appointments as professor of data science in UMMC’s John D. Bower School of Population Health and professor of Health Administration in School of Health Related Professions. Prior to becoming an associate dean, Dr. Zhang served as director and chief research biostatistician of Office of Health Data and Research at the Mississippi State Department of Health, where he was the PI for the Mississippi Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), and Behavioral Risk Factoring Surveillance System (BRFSS). Dr. Zhang has focused on community-engaged research including injury prevention, chronic disease, and maternal and child health. He is the Principal Investigator for the UMMC project - A Proposal to Establish the Mississippi Violence Injury Prevention (VIP) Program. He is also the PI for the Mississippi Violence Against Women and Substance Use Prevention Initiative focusing on the intersection of intimate partner violence (IPV) and substance use disorder (SUD) funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.