Virginia J. Howard, distinguished professor of epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has been awarded the 2024 Population Research Prize from the American Heart Association.
As an epidemiologist, Dr. Howard’s research focuses on strokes and the factors contributing to unequal burden of strokes. She has led several long-term studies on health disparities, cognitive functioning, and stroke risk factors. She currently leads the REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study, an ongoing project examining why there are higher rates of death from strokes among Black adults compared to White adults in the United States.
A University of Alabama at Birmingham faculty member for nearly three decades, Dr. Howard currently serves as a senior scientist with a dozen research centers across the university’s School of Public Health, the School of Medicine, and the School of Health Professions. Earlier in her career, she served as an instructor and conducted research with the School of Medicine at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Dr. Howard is a cum laude graduate of what is now St. Andrews University in Laurinburg, North Carolina, where she double-majored in mathematics and psychology. She holds a master’s degree in biostatistics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the Medical University of South Carolina.