Nora Franceschini

Nora Franceschini, MD, MPH, FAHA, is a Professor of Epidemiology in the Cardiovascular Disease section of the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health and Professor of Genetics in the School of Medicine. She earned her MD from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in 1986, and her MPH in Epidemiology from UNC Chapel Hill in 2004. Her medical training includes a Nephrology Clinical/Research Fellowship at Duke University Medical Center (1998-2000), Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Utah (1995-1998), Research Fellowship in Nephrology at Oregon Health & Science University (1993-1995), and residencies in Brazil. She holds US board certifications in Internal Medicine (1998, recertified 2008) and Nephrology (2000, recertified 2010 and 2020), as well as Brazilian Nephrology certification (1990).

Franceschini's career at UNC Chapel Hill includes roles as Instructor of Medicine in Nephrology & Hypertension (2001-2005), Postdoctoral Fellow in Genetic Epidemiology (2004-2007), Assistant Professor of Epidemiology (2007-2015), Associate Professor (2015-2019), and Professor since 2019. A nephrology-trained physician and cardiovascular disease epidemiologist, her research examines environmental and genetic determinants of hypertension, kidney function, subclinical atherosclerosis, and cardiovascular diseases in diverse US and global populations bearing high chronic disease burdens. This encompasses gene discovery, multi-omics biomarkers, gene-environment interactions on cardiovascular outcomes, genetics of reproductive traits, and chronic kidney disease of unknown cause in Central America. Notable awards include Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA, 2019), Trudy Bush Fellowship for Cardiovascular Disease Research in Women’s Health (2018), CHARGE Tiger Leadership Award (2019), UNC Postdoctoral Award for Research Excellence (2006), and National Kidney Foundation Young Investigator Award (2002). Key publications feature “Advancing genetic testing in kidney diseases: Report from a National Kidney Foundation Working Group” (Am J Kidney Dis, 2024), “Genome-wide association analysis of blood-pressure traits in african-ancestry individuals reveals common associated genes in african and non-african populations” (Am J Hum Genet, 2013), “Genetics of kidney traits in worldwide populations: the Continental Origins and Genetic Epidemiology Network (COGENT) Kidney Consortium” (Kidney Int, 2020), and “Epigenome-wide association study of kidney function identifies trans-ethnic and ethnic-specific loci” (Genome Med, 2021).

Professional Email: noraf@unc.edu