2022 Ancel Keys Memorial Lecturer - Donna K. Arnett, PhD, MPH, FAHA

Donna K. Arnett is Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs at the University of South Carolina. Prior to this, Dr. Arnett was Dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Kentucky from 2016-2022. She served as the chair of the Epidemiology Department at the University of Alabama-Birmingham from 2004-2015. Dr. Arnett received a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of South Florida and practiced critical care nursing for a number of years before earning her Master of Public Health degree from the USF and then a PhD in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Arnett has received continuous US National Institutes of Health research funding for 25 years. Her research has focused primarily on the genomics and epigenomics of cardiovascular disease and related phenotypes, and she has published more than 700 peer-reviewed publications and edited three books. Throughout her career, Dr. Arnett has been active in cardiovascular disease prevention and health promotion. She has served as the chair of the American Heart Association Research Committee and Scientific Publishing Committee. From 2012-13, Dr. Arnett served as the national president of the American Heart Association, the first epidemiologist to serve in that role.