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BIOGRAPHY

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Professional ​
info​​

Cornell P. Wright, MPA is a prominent internationally renowned leader and subject-matter expert in the area of justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, health equity, minority health, historically marginalized populations, outreach, and comm engagement. Wright currently serves as the Health Equity Advisor for General Dynamics Information Technology. Most recently, Wright served the Alliance for a Healthier Generation as their first -ever Chief Health Equity Officer, while helping to pave the way to accelerate their mission and impact in whole child health equity.

 

For seven years, Wright also served as Executive Director of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities, where he led programs. provided guidance, policy development, budget management, and provided statewide leadership to address health disparities.  In addition, he provided leadership to NC Health Systems to ensure minority health priorities, policies, and initiatives were addressed in a systematic way and on a statewide basis.

 

Wright has been lauded by the North Carolina Governor and other State leaders, locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally, for his rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic: co-creating and co-leading the NC Historically Marginalized Populations Workgroup to ensure that the inequities and disparities that we see in specialized communities were addressed through statewide response and recovery efforts.

 

As an active member in the health community, Wright serves and has served on various groups, organizations and boards including the Patient Centered Outcome Research Institute where he served as chair on the Clinical Effectiveness and Decision Science Advisory Panel, the North Carolina Governor-appointed Andrea Harris Social, Economic, Environmental and Health Equity Task Force where he served as chair to the Patient Engagement Subcommittee, and the Southeastern Health Equity Council, as part of the National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities, serving as the Co-Chair to the Social Determinants of Health Committee.

 

Due to his many contributions in the health arena, Wright has received awards and recognitions from such entities as the National Institutes of Health, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, North Carolina Central University, the National Minority Quality Forum, and was recognized as a former Spectacular Magazine Man of the Year in Health. Wright has also presenter during TED X UNC, offering his gifts to explore and define “Sexual Health Equity” in his talk “#ColorPurpleRain” and recently published an invited commentary entitled “In Search of Equity” in the North Carolina Medical Journal.

 

Always willing to serve, Wright is passionate about his work and assisting others.

Skills

Project Management

Contract/ Grant/ Cooperative Agreement Management

Focus Group Facilitation

Logic Modeling

Evaluation

Budget Evaluation

Team Building

Health Literacy

Languages

HTML/CSS

French (intermediate)

Work​
experience​

October 2023 - present:  General Dynamics Information Technology

Health Equity Advisor

April 2022 - September 2023:  Alliance for a Healthier Generation

Chief Health Equity Officer

March 2015 - April 2022:  North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health, Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities

Executive Director

 

October 2013 - February 2015:  Duke University, Duke Cancer Institute, Office of Health Equity and Disparities

Outreach and Screening Patient Navigation Coordinator

 

August 2013 - October 2013: American Heart Association, Mid-Atlantic Affiliate   

Interim Director, Community and Multicultural Health Initiatives

 

June 2013 - February 2015:  University of North Carolina Healthcare System, 6 East – Lower GI Surgery

Health Unit Coordinator 

 

August 2009 - October 2013:  Center for Health and Healing, Inc. (a non-profit affiliate of the General Baptist State Convention of NC, Inc.)

Agency Programs Manager

 

August 2005 - August 2009: Center for Health and Healing, Inc. (a non-profit affiliate of the General Baptist State Convention of NC, Inc.),

Minority Health Careers Initiative Project Coordinator

 

September 2004 - August 2005: Center for Health and Healing, Inc. (a non-profit affiliate of the General Baptist State Convention of NC, Inc.) Picture Me Tobacco Free Project

Project Assistant/ AmeriCorps Fellow

 

January 2003 - May 2004: American Legacy Foundation, Historically Black Colleges, Universities Tobacco Control Advocacy Project

Graduate Assistant, Lead Evaluator

 

Education
North Carolina Central University. 
Master's of Art, Public Administration (MPA)

​2002 - 2005

 

North Carolina Central University.
Bachelor's of Art, Political Science

​1997 - 2002

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