Phillip Schnarrs, an Indiana University of Pennsylvania Young Alumni Achievement Award recipient who is an associate professor and associate chair for research in the Department of Population Health at Dell Medical School, University of Texas–Austin, will present “The Importance of Sociologists in Medicine” at IUP on April 17.
His presentation will be at 4:00 p.m. in Jane Leonard Hall, room B11. It is free and open to the community.
The program is part of the IUP Department of Sociology’s Social Sciences Career Pathways Speaker Series. It is also sponsored by the IUP Ambassadors, the student-alumni group, as part of Schnarr’s selection as a 2023 Young Alumni Achievement Award recipient; he was unable to come to campus in 2023.
The presentation is cosponsored by the Sociology Club, Alpha Kappa Delta honor society, the Political Leadership Society, the Anthropology Club, Alpha Phi Sigma honor society, the Criminology Association, and the Economics Club.
Schnarrs, originally from South Park, Allegheny County, earned a bachelor’s degree in general studies from IUP in 2007 and a master’s degree in sociology in 2009.
His presentation will focus on how his work bridges public health, social and behavioral sciences, and humanities research. He will also discuss how sociology prepared him to research how exposure to especially unique forms of adversity, like childhood abuse and neglect, experienced early in life by LGBTQ+ people, impacts adult health and wellbeing.
Since receiving the Young Alumni Achievement Award, Schnarrs has secured funding from the National Institutes of Health on his research and development of a sexual and gender minority adverse childhood experiences scale.
As a graduate student at IUP, Schnarrs received the IUP Presidential LGBT Commission Distinguished Service Award, as well as the John S. Rock Exceptional Leadership and Services Award, presented by the African American Cultural Center. Since then, he has received 11 additional honors and awards for his work in public health.
In 2012, he earned a PhD in health behavior at the Indiana University School of Public Health at Bloomington, which included a predoctoral fellowship with Fenway Institute—a center for research, training, and policy development in LGBTQ+ health, affiliated with Harvard University.
Throughout his career, Schnarrs has held various positions within the health and wellness field, including research consultant on a number of projects, project coordinator for the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University in Bloomington, and assistant professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio in the department of kinesiology, health, and nutrition.
In his current position, he is the director for a newly formed center for LGBTQ+ Health Research at UT Austin that, among other goals, aims to bridge public health, social science, and humanities research in this space. He also directs the Texas People-Centered Research, Intervention Design, and Evaluation in Health Collaborative, or the PRIDE in Health Collaborative. Currently funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the collaborative brings together more than 14 academic institutions in Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, with a membership of more than 40 research and 100 community partners to build capacity for LGBTQ+ research across US Public Health Region 6.
Schnarr’s research is broadly focused on LGBTQ+ health, and much of his time is dedicated to understanding how exposure to especially unique forms of adversity, like childhood abuse and neglect experienced early in life by LGBTQ+ people, impacts adult health and wellbeing. He recently received funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, in collaboration with colleagues at the Pride Study at Stanford University, to further develop his Sexual and Gender Minority Adverse Childhood Experiences Framework and to examine the impact of these unique forms of childhood adversity on immune function in LGBTQ+ adults.
Over the past decade, in addition to his 2024 grant from the National Institutes of Health, he has received nearly $20 million in research funding from the National Institutes of Health, Merck, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. He has authored or co-authored more than 55 peer-reviewed publications, books, community reports and policy briefs; and conducted almost 70 conference presentations.
He is currently a senior associate editor for the Annal of LGBTQ Public and Population Health, serves on the editorial board of Sexuality Research & Social Policy, and is an ad hoc reviewer for 15 other publications, such as the American Journal of Public Health and Psychology and New Media. He is also on the executive board for Texas Pride Impact Funds, serving as the chair of the grant action committee. This is the only statewide charitable community foundation in Texas supporting grassroots organizations that provide direct services to LGBTQ+ Texans in under-resourced communities through equitable grantmaking.
The Young Alumni Achievement Award was created to recognize recent IUP graduates identified as being outstanding in their professions. IUP has more than 150,000 alumni all over the globe.
IUP graduates of less than 15 years are eligible for this award. Recipients are selected by the deans of their colleges. When award recipients return to campus for the award ceremony, they are hosted by members of IUP Ambassadors, the student-alumni group, and make presentations to IUP classes in their fields.