Biography

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Celette Sugg Skinner, Ph.D., holds the Parkland Community Medicine Professorship at the UT Southwestern Medical Center. She is Professor and Interim Dean of the Peter O'Donnell Jr. School of Public Health and was previously the Inaugural Chair of the Department of Population & Data Sciences. In 2022, she served as President of the national organization of Population Health Leaders in Academic Medicine. 

A pioneer in computer-tailored communications, Dr. Skinner has spent more than 30 years developing and testing innovative behavior-change interventions, working primarily among traditionally underserved groups. Her recent work focuses on multilevel interventions that meaningfully use electronic health records to identify patients in need of intervention, use clinically collected information to generate and deliver algorithm-driven tailored interventions, and track intervention outcomes.  

Since 1994, when she was a member of the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) first Working Group on Computerized Tailored Interventions, Dr. Skinner has been a frequently invited participant in NCI “think tanks” to address cancer prevention and disparities. In 2016, she was the only UT Southwestern faculty member to serve on the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel, working with a group to set national priorities for dissemination and implementation research. 

Dr. Skinner joined UT Southwestern in 2007 as Chief of the Division of Behavioral and Communication Sciences and as the founding Associate Director of Population Research for the Harold C. Simmons Cancer Center. She previously served as Associate Director for Population Research for the Duke Cancer Institute. Before that, she was a member of the Siteman Cancer Center of Washington University in St. Louis (1993-1998) and the Indiana University Simon Cancer Center (1991-1993).

Dr. Skinner received an M.A. in Communications Research from The Wheaton Graduate School and a Ph.D. in Health Behavior from the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, where she serves as an Adjunct Professor and is a former member and Chair of the Public Health Foundation Board.

Education

Graduate School
Wheaton College , Communications
Graduate School
University of North Carolina A (1991)

Publications

Featured Publications LegendFeatured Publications

Screening initiation with FIT or colonoscopy: post-hoc analysis of a pragmatic, randomized trial.
Murphy CC, Ahn C, Pruitt SL, Hughes AE, Halm EA, Gupta S, Santini NO, McCallister K, Sanders JM, Singal AG, Skinner CS. Preventive Medicine 2019 118 332-335
A process model for accrual to cancer clinical trials.
Lee SC, Murphy CC, Geiger AM, Gerber DE, Cox JV, Nair R & Skinner CS Journal of Clinical Oncology 2019 10.1200/JCO.19.00101
Impact of a Clinical Decision Support System on Guideline Adherence of Surveillance Recommendations for Colonoscopy After Polypectomy.
Magrath M, Yang E, Ahn C, Mayorga C, Gopal P, Agrawal D, Murphy C, Halm EA, Botyon E, Skinner CS & Singal AG Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Center Network 2018 16 11 1321-1328
Recommendation of colorectal cancer testing among primary care patients younger than 50 with elevated risk
Skinner CS, Ahn C, Halm EA, Bishop WP, McCallister K, Sanders J, Santini NO, Farrell D & Singal AG Preventive Medicine 2017 102 20-23
Development of the Parkland-UT Southwestern Colonoscopy Reporting System (CoRS) for evidence-based colon cancer surveillance recommendations
Skinner CS, Gupta S, Halm EA, Wright S, McCallister K, Bishop WP, Santini N, Mayorga C, Agrawal D, Moran B, Sanders JM & Singal A. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 2016 23 2 402-406
Impact of risk assessment and tailored versus nontailored risk information on colorectal cancer testing in primary care: A randomized controlled trial.
Skinner CS, Halm EA, Bishop WP, Ahn C, Gupta S, Farrell D, Morrow J, Julka M, McCallister K, Sanders JM, Marks E & Rawl S. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention 2015 24 10 1523-1530

Honors & Awards

  • Phi Beta Kappa
    (1980)