Skip to main content

Rebecca Fry, PhD (she/her)

Principal Investigator

*Carol Remmer Angle Distinguished Professor in Children’s Environmental Health

*Interim Chair for the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering

*Director of Graduate Studies for the Curriculum in Toxicology

*Founding Director of the Institute for Environmental Health Solutions (IEHS)

*Director of the UNC Superfund Research Program

*Contact Info: (919) 843-6864  |   rfry@email.unc.edu

Rebecca Fry, Ph.D. is the Carol Remmer Angle Distinguished Professor in Children’s Environmental Health and Interim Chair at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering. Dr. Fry is the founding Director of the Institute for Environmental Health Solutions (IEHS) at UNC-Chapel Hilland the Director of the UNC Superfund Research Program. She is an expert in environmental epigenetics and toxicogenomics. A major focus of her laboratory is to identify mechanisms underlying the deleterious impacts of toxic exposures during the prenatal period with a focus on the epigenome and developmental origins of health and disease. Her research group has identified epigenetic mechanisms that relate toxic substances to pregnancy complications, children’s health, and cancer outcomes. We use transdisciplinary approaches including human population-based research, cell culture-based research and mouse model-based research to refine the understanding of chemical exposure and toxicity. This lab has published on a host of toxic substances including but not limited to acetaminophen, arsenic, cadmium, disinfection byproducts, and per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Dr. Fry has participated in advisory committees and expert panels, including the committee for the National Academies of Science (NAS) National Research Council for the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) review of inorganic arsenic, a reviewer for the cancer and non-cancer risk assessment of arsenic in food by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and a reviewer for the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).