Stephanie M. Teixeira-Poit, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Hairston College of Health and Human Sciences at North Carolina A&T State University (NC A&T). Before joining NC A&T, Dr. Teixeira-Poit worked for 7 years as a research public health analyst at RTI International and for 5 years as a research associate at the Center for Urban Affairs and Community Services at North Carolina State University. She has more than 15 years of experience managing research teams; designing and implementing research and evaluation; developing protocols for surveys, interviews, and focus groups; collecting and analyzing qualitative data; and performing advanced quantitative methods.

Dr. Teixeira-Poit is a medical sociologist and health services researcher who conducts mixed-methods research on complex intervention implementation and evaluation. She has three primary research streams. First, she leads health care transformation studies that promote value-based care principles to improve health care access and utilization, delivery and quality of care, and health outcomes while reducing health care costs. Her studies have included federal demonstrations and local interventions that transformed payment systems, redesigned clinical processes, and/or established systems of care addressing health and social needs. Second, she designs, implements, and evaluates policies and interventions to attenuate the effect of structural and social drivers on access to health care and health outcomes. Third, she addresses workforce shortages and improves the capacity of the workforce to provide clinical care and conduct research to improve the lives of populations disproportionately impacted by chronic diseases. Taken together, her research has identified how policies and interventions moderate relationships between health determinants and important population health outcomes, such as preventive behaviors, timeliness of care, and mortality rates. These findings have informed co-development of policies and interventions that can improve health outcomes. 

She has served as principal investigator or task lead on research projects sponsored by agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Health Resources and Services Administration, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, National Science Foundation, and North Carolina Policy Collaboratory. Her work has resulted in more than 100 presentations at conferences, 2 Reports to Congress, and more than 80 publications including technical research reports and peer-reviewed articles in leading scholarly journals contributing to system and practice transformation, workforce assessment, policy recommendations, and health innovative strategies.

Dr. Teixeira-Poit uses experiential and active learning approaches to teach a mixed-methods research methods course, social statistics courses, and substantive courses such as medical sociology and social problems. She has experience teaching in both in person and online formats. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she was selected as an NC A&T Digital Learning Faculty Fellow charged with supporting faculty/instructors who transitioned to remote learning. She is Quality Matters certified to design online courses and has an Advanced Certificate in the Effective Teaching Practice Framework from the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE). 

Dr. Teixeira-Poit has served as the elected Vice President of the Rural Sociological Society (RSS); elected Health Policy and Research Chair of the Medical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA; two year term); elected Treasurer / Secretary of the Teaching and Learning Section of the ASA (three year term); elected RSS Governing Council member (twice served; three years per term); Chair of four different RSS Research Interest Group sections (Rural Policy; Applied and Extension; Community and Health; and Teaching and Curriculum); Chair of four different RSS Standing Committees (Programs, Nominations, Diversity, and Publications); Chair of the Professions Committee of the Southern Sociological Society; Co-Chair of the Workforce Development Committee of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (two years); and both Associate Editor (four years) and Managing Editor (two years) of the journal Rural Sociology. Since 2019, she has served on Cone Health System’s Nursing Research Council.

Dr. Teixeira-Poit’s research, teaching, and service has been nationally and locally recognized. Her team won 3^rd place in the National Science Foundation’s Taking Action: COVID-19 Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Challenge. She was honored with the Forty Under 40 Leaders by the Triad Business Journal, Outstanding College Award for Community Engagement from NC A&T’s College of Health and Human Sciences, Community Engagement Award from NC A&T, the Outstanding College Research Award from NC A&T’s College of Health and Human Sciences, the Research Partner of the Year Award from the Carolinas Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and the Hans O. Mauksch Award for Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate Sociology from the American Sociological Association’s Teaching and Learning Section.