Julianne Cyr (she/her), MPH, CPH, is a Research Instructor and Director of Student Research in the Department of Emergency Medicine.
Ms. Julianne Cyr is one of our leading diversity activists. She has worked creatively, collaboratively, and tirelessly to provide opportunities and mentoring to our next generation of emergency medicine clinicians and leaders.
– Jane Brice, MD, MPH | Department Chair
Julianne proudly shares her belief and interest in promoting diversity and representation in the next generations of researchers and clinicians as she knows this is the path to creating better health outcomes for minority populations. Though the focus of her research is improving the prehospital care of special population in NC, a large portion of her time is dedicated to increasing student capacity to perform research and explore careers in medicine and research.
In 2016, she started the Internship in Science and Health Training and Research (ISHTaR), which allows local high school students from diverse and underrepresented populations to participate in a paid career exploration opportunity over the Summer. ISHTaR interns join her research team to learn about designing and performing public health and medical research and shadow a variety of other clinicians (e.g., cardiovascular surgery, OB/GYN, EMS) and researchers (e.g., pharmacy, epidemiology).
In addition, she has managed the Intensive Summer Research Training in Emergency Medicine (ISTEM) program since its inception in 2017. ISTEM is designed to give UNC medical students paid opportunities to perform research over the Summer with researchers across UNC and affiliated institutions.
Recently, Julianne has been working with several Emergency Medicine colleagues to design two new programs aimed at promoting diversity in the next generations of researchers and clinicians. The first is an R25 grant she and Dr. Maglin Halsey-Nichols recently submitted to the NHLBI; “CureNC” allows NC undergraduate students from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds to participate in mentored research projects and engage in research and medical education to build their research capacity.
An additional program in the works plans to bridge the expertise of clinical and research staff with the needs of a local middle school and the educational requirements of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. In this program, UNC faculty and staff will work with school teachers to bring novel education and experiences in personal health, public health, and medicine; this program is currently being designed with the assistance of Dr. Maglin Halsey-Nichols, Dr. Tracy DeSelm, Dr. Karen Serrano, and Mr. Richard Carmona.
Ms. Julianne Cyr is one of our leading diversity activist. She has worked creatively, collaboratively, and tirelessly to provide opportunity and mentoring to our next generation of emergency medicine clinicians and leaders.