Rebecca (Becky) Gary is a tenured Professor, her research has primary focused on applying a biobehavioral framework to exercise interventions to better understand the underlying physiological mechanisms, improve physical and psychological symptoms, and enhance quality of life in chronic illness populations, primarily individuals with advanced cardiovascular disease such as heart failure. She has also studied the link between the physiological and psychological responses associated with worsening symptom severity and disease progression in head and neck cancer patients, older HIV adults, and family heart failure caregivers.  Dr. Gary has had continuous funding for her work through NIH, the American Heart Association, the Emory Heart and Vascular Center and other sources since coming to Emory.  She teaches Health Outcomes Research and Health Risk Interventions and Outcomes in the PhD program as well as mentoring pre-doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows.

Since 2016, Dr. Gary has directed the International Collaborative PhD program in Nursing between Emory University and Addis Ababa University Schools of Nursing.  This unique program features a hybrid model where courses are offered across both universities using distance education technology as well as traditional classroom settings.  Dr. Gary is also co-PI with Dr. Mohammed Ali, a Professor in the Hubert Department of Global Health in the Rollins School of Public Health on a 5-year NIH Fogarty International Center grant entitled, “Training on ImplemenTAtioN and team Science for NCD Control (TITANS, 1D43TW012459-01).” The overarching goal of TITANS is strengthening capacity within and between higher education institutions in an urban setting, Addis Ababa University (AAU), and a rural setting, Bahir Dar University (BDU), in Ethiopia. Within each institution in Ethiopia, the program will recruit and train researchers with nursing, medical, and public health backgrounds to address vital gaps in the delivery of evidence-based cardiometabolic and renal health interventions across the lifespan using implementation science and a team science approach. The TITANS program will increase the number and scope of well-trained, highly skilled nursing, physician, and public health investigators that will form a strong base of implementation scientists in Ethiopia through this postdoctoral research training program. We will recruit and train 24 postdoctoral research scholars(two per discipline per year for four years) and 8 mid-career and senior faculty as scholar mentors over the duration of the program.