PHILADELPHIA -- Karen Glanz, a globally influential public-health scholar, has been named the ninth Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

The appointment was announced today by Penn President Amy Gutmann and Interim Provost Vincent Price.

Glanz’s appointment will be shared between the School of Medicine and the School of Nursing, and she will lead a new center focused on research and training in health behaviors.

“The prevention of chronic illness is critical to the well-being of our society,” Gutmann said. “Dr. Glanz’s innovative research in epidemiology, health psychology and disease prevention enhances Penn’s strength in these interdisciplinary areas. Her appointment as our ninth PIK professor will help forge even stronger integration between our schools of Medicine and Nursing through our new interdisciplinary Center for Health Behavior Research.”

Glanz specializes in the impact of behavior on health, especially the modification of risks for cancer and obesity. She is senior author and editor of “Health Behavior and Health Education” (1990), now in its fourth edition and the definitive book in its field. Throughout her career, she has been a leader in research that directly influences social policy in such areas as cancer screening, ethnic differences in health behaviors, adherence to medical-treatment regimens and the use of new communication technologies in disease prevention.

“Karen Glanz embodies the highest aspirations of the PIK professorship,” Price said. “She brings together public health, public education and public policy in ways that are transforming peoples’ lives around the world.”

Gutmann launched the Penn Integrates Knowledge program in 2005. The University-wide initiative recruits exceptional faculty members whose research and teaching exemplify the integration of knowledge across disciplines. PIK professors hold joint appointments between two schools at Penn.

Glanz holds senior editorial positions at more than two dozen prominent journals. She has published more than 250 journal articles and book chapters and has garnered more than $20 million in federal funding from the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control during the past 10 years.

She is currently Charles Howard Candler Professor and Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Research Scholar in the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. She taught previously at the University of Hawaii and Temple University and earned a Ph.D. (1979), M.P.H. (1977) and B.A. (1974) from the University of Michigan.