Dr. Sharon Ross received her PhD in Biobehavioral Health from The Pennsylvania State University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Children’s Physical Activity Research Group in the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. She is an Associate Professor of Health and Human Development in the School of Education with a joint appointment in the Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. 

Dr. Ross has expertise in obesity prevention and physical activity promotion in children and youth, working primarily with Latinx families. Her community-engaged research focuses on promoting healthy lifestyles in Latinx families through culturally-tailored, home- and community-based interventions delivered by trained community health workers. As a health disparities behavioral scientist, she has engaged in high impact, community-engaged research and scholarship. Her work addresses a critical public health concern – physical activity and health disparities – and is rooted in key issues, including community-based health promotion and prevention and translating evidence-based research into practice. Her specific skill sets and capabilities involve community-engaged research approaches and applying mixed methods to learn, grow, and work with communities. Her expertise spans several areas and lies at the intersection of physical activity promotion, family-based interventions, and Latino inequities. Much of this work centers on training community members as community health workers to deliver culturally-tailored interventions. The research setting is an emerging Latino community, an area where Latinos are a small but rapidly growing segment of the population  

In her spare time, Dr. Ross enjoys yoga, walking her goldendoodle, Axl, and hiking through Pittsburgh’s urban parks. In her spare time as a family she is probably reading Harry Potter, going to the pool, or traveling to spend time with friends and family.

We want to congratulate Dr. Ross on being awarded tenure in March 2022 and becoming a fellow with ACSM in June!