Jylana L. Sheats, PhD, MPH

Jylana L. Sheats is a behavior scientist and educator. Within the broader fields of nutrition and physical activity, her research focuses on the examination of individual, social, contextual, environmental, and policy-related determinants of obesity and chronic. To address health disparities among among racial/ethnic and vulnerable populations, Dr. Sheats develops and tests theoretically grounded community- and technology-based interventions. With the support of a National Institutes of Health career development award, she is testing efficacy of culturally-informed communication technologies to change the food-related behaviors African Americans residing in New Orleans. Prior to Tulane, Dr. Sheats was a researcher at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, Healthy Aging Research and Technology Solutions (HARTS) Lab. Utilizing her post-doctoral research training in behavioral science, she co-directed technology-based (i.e., embodied conversational agents, SMS, mobile apps, wireless and sensor-based devices) randomized controlled trials to promote health behavior change; and community-based efforts to create healthy communities and policies.