University of Minnesota School of Public Health Assistant Professor Dana Carroll has been recognized with the McKnight Presidential Fellow Award, one of the University’s highest honors. Carroll is one of nine tenured faculty members across the University of Minnesota to receive the award. She is a certified tobacco treatment specialist and epidemiologist who uses a health equity lens and community-based participatory research methods to help American Indian persons reduce commercial tobacco use.

The McKnight Presidential Fellows Program is a three-year award given to exceptional UMN faculty to recognize their accomplishments and support their ongoing research and scholarship.

“Dana Carroll is exceptionally deserving of this prestigious award,” said Melinda Pettigrew, dean and Mayo Chair in the School of Public Health. “Through her research, Dr. Carroll strives to direct resources and funding to community programming and structures that elevate systems of American Indian knowledge. Her expertise, skills, values, collaborations, leadership, and commitment to health equity  advance our mission and efforts to improve the health and well-being of American Indian communities”

In her relatively short academic career, Carroll has 51 peer-reviewed publications that include describing the development and evaluation of novel smoking cessation interventions for American Indian people, the examination of geographic disparities among American Indian persons in smoking and resultant health outcomes, the impact of the tobacco industry’s marketing to American Indian populations, and the perceptions of various smoking-cessation approaches among American Indian persons.

In 2023, Carroll’s collaboration with the American Indian Cancer Foundation to launch SmokeFreeNative, a text messaging program to help American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents and adults quit smoking, was included as a resource in the White House’s cancer-prevention efforts.