Verizon Wireless
Women's Circle
Cralle-Day
Multicultural Studies
Forensic Studies
Culton Endowed Professorship
Verizon Wireless Chair of Studies on Violence Against Women: Women’s Health
A growing body of literature gives evidence of the effects that intimate partner violence and sexual assault have on the health of a woman. The enormous complexity of the interrelationship of health and violence has yet to be fully explored, however, leaving gaps in knowledge around etiology and treatment of disease and injury in women with historic or current victimization experiences.
An endowed chair devoted to the study of women’s health was the first to be established by the Center. In 2004, Verizon Wireless gifted $250,000 to the Center to begin our endowment effort. The Center raised additional funds and accessed match funding through the Kentucky Research Challenge Trust Fund in order to establish the Verizon Wireless Chair of Studies on Violence Against Women with a $1 million endowment.
For the Verizon Wireless Chair of Studies on Violence Against Women, the Center partnered with the College of Medicine to establish the primary academic home and the College of Public Health as the secondary academic home for the Chair.
A national search was launched in June 2006 by Dean of Medicine Jay Perman and Center Director Carol Jordan at a dinner hosted by the center to kick-off the national scientific meeting exploring the health implications of violence against women and women’s health. The search committee for the Verizon Wireless Chair was co-chaired by Carol Jordan and James E. Ferguson, the Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dean of Public Health, Steve Wyatt, actively offered his leadership and support to the search.
In May 2007, the position was accepted by Ann L. Coker, PhD, MPH. Dr. Coker comes to UK from the
University of Texas where she served as full professor of epidemiology in the Health Science Center, School
of Public Health. As an epidemiologist and public health researcher, her research has focused on women’s
health, specifically determining the physical and mental health outcomes of intimate partner violence.
Over the past 10 years, Dr. Coker has published 36 manuscripts on intimate partner violence and received six grants (totaling $2,847,605) to research its frequency and health-related outcomes. In addition to intimate partner violence, Dr. Coker’s research has addressed the etiology of reproductive cancers including cervical, breast and prostate cancer. She has received $2,755,548 in grant funding and published 24 manuscripts in this area. Recently her work has focused on the associations of cancer and intimate partner violence.
Dr. Coker assumed the position of Verizon Wireless Endowed Chair of Studies on Violence Against Women in September 2007.