Karlene Cunningham, PhD

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisor

Dr. Karlene Cunningham is an attending psychologist, Clinical Assistant Professor, and Vice-Chair of Diversity and Inclusion in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Auburn University and completed her internship in Behavioral Medicine at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University. She stayed on to complete an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship in Adolescent/Young Adult Biobehavioral HIV research and a second fellowship in Clinical and Community-Based HIV/AIDS through Brown University’s School of Public Health. Much of her initial research focused on marginalized communities and identified factors locally and globally that can reduce sexual health risks.  During her time at Brown, she received specialized training in perinatal mental health at one of the first mother-baby day hospitals in the US. This training is the foundation for her current health disparities research in perinatal mental health.

Clinically, Dr. Cunningham focuses primarily on hospital-based consultation-liaison with a special interest in reproductive psychology, psycho-oncology, and sickle cell disease. She takes pride in her role providing supervision to medical students and resident learners on service. She is specifically known for crafting additional educational experiences related to social determinates of health, health disparities, and patient-provider communication.

In 2018, Dr. Cunningham was appointed as the Vice-Chair of Diversity and Inclusion for her department and soon became the school-level VCDI committee chair. During her tenure as the chair of VCDI, she has worked on solidifying participation from all departments, increased baseline resources for fellow VCDIs, developed programming to improve awareness of healthcare disparities, and encouraged evidence-based interventions to enhance inclusion and belonging.

On a personal note, Dr. Cunningham’s investment in DEI work and health equity is born out of her lived experience. Originally from a rural part of Jamaica and having lived in the South most of her life, she has experienced firsthand the negative impacts of healthcare disparities and the need for health equity.