Dr. Jewell Halanych is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Division of Preventive Medicine (DOPM). The DOPM research program focuses on health disparities in diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. She is an Associate Scientist at UAB's Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research and Education (COERE) and the Minority Health and Research Center (MHRC). She is a 2004 National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities Scholar. With funding from National Institutes of Health (NIH)'s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation. Dr. Halanych has conducted research examining perceived discrimination in health care, the role of implicit bias in health care staff and the effectiveness of peer advisors in improving diabetes outcomes in rural Alabama.

Raised outside of Houston, Texas, Dr. Halanych received her B.S. in Zoology from the University of Texas at Austin, her M.D. at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and completed an Internal Medicine Residency at Brown University and a General Internal Medicine Fellowship at Boston University. In addition to her primary appointment in Birmingham, she has a secondary appointment with the UAB Montgomery Internal Medicine Residency Program where she teaches outpatient medicine to residents.