Schenita D. Randolph,
PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN

Founding Director/ Principal Investigator,
Associate Professor, Duke University School of Nursing

Schenita Randolph, PhD, MH, RN, FAAN, is the Founding Director and Principal Investigator of the HEEAT Lab, and an Associate Professor in the Duke University School of Nursing. Her overarching goal as a nurse scholar is to address the root causes of health disparities and promote sexual health equity for racial/ethnic minority populations—specifically, Black women, adolescents, families, and communities. 

In all of her research, Dr. Randolph engages community members in the study design and implementation process. She is currently the Principal Investigator of UPDOs, an initiative funded by Gilead Sciences to develop a salon-based intervention to promote the awareness and uptake of PrEP among Black women living in the United States South. She is also an Inaugural Fellow in the Betty Irene Moore Fellowship where she developed The Talk, the first nurse-led, web-based application to address the co-occurrence of HIV transmission and racial discrimination among Black male adolescents and young adults. She’s also a Co-Founder of the Black Nurse Scientists Mentoring Program and  PI of the the Community COVID Testing Initiative.

From 2016–2021, she served as a Co-Director for the Community Engagement and Dissemination Core of the Duke Center for REsearch to AdvanCe Healthcare Equity (REACH Equity). Funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, this Center of Excellence on Minority Health and Health Disparities is designed to conduct multidisciplinary research, research training, and community engagement to improve minority health and reduce health disparities.