Niasha Fray

Niasha FrayMs. Niasha (Pronounced: NI-E-sha) Fray is a proud native of North Carolina with an academic background in Clinical Psychology and Public Health. She has worked on research that involves developing interventions that promotes health and behavior change of at-risk populations including those affected by substance abuse, incarceration, HIV/AIDS, and Cancer. Ms. Fray has also served as a counselor delivering Motivational Interviewing risk reduction counseling for people working to overcome addiction, disruptive behavior disorders, and people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS and Cancer. She has developed and provided a variety of community-based professional training among health care providers throughout North Carolina and internationally on HIV education, prevention, and risk reduction.

Currently, she is a Program Director at the Duke Center for Community and Population Health Improvement where she is developing a community-based multi-sector collaborative. The aim of the collaborative is to go beyond healthcare treatment and address the social factors that determine individual and community health, thus working on the issues that cause health inequality, and to create systemic change that benefits the entire Durham community. Ms. Fray is also developing an interactive web platform that highlights Population Health Improvement efforts that are intended to improve the lives of people who live, work and play in Durham. As a result of her steadfast commitment to health and justice in her community, Ms. Fray was named the 2019 Duke University Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award Recipient.

Her primary professional and research interests entail working to make Health Equity a reality. She strives to develop community partnerships that promote and enhance population health as well as improve the quality of healthcare experienced by marginalized and underserved communities, in order to abate issues stemming from discrimination within the healthcare industry.