Dr. Thelma Alafia Samuels is the Director, Chronic Disease Research Centre of the Caribbean Institute for Health Research (CAIHR), and the Deputy Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus Barbados.

Dr. Samuels is a medically qualified epidemiologist. Following medical school at the University of the West Indies (Mona), she went on to pursue a Master’s Degree in Public Health at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and a PhD in Chronic Disease Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University, both degrees awarded with honours.

Dr. Samuels joined CAIHR in December 2015 as Director of CDRC in Barbados, and is now the Principal Investigator of the IDRC-funded evaluation of the CARICOM Heads of Government 2007 NCD (Non- Communicable Disease) Summit Declaration. She is a member of the Research group for the Barbados 2012 Health of the Nation Risk Factor survey conducted by the CDRC on behalf of the Ministry of Health in Barbados.

As project lead for the IDRC-funded, CA$4 million project, she looks at the impact of diet-related NCDs, particularly the issue of access to affordable fresh, health foods. This project engages strong research institutions in the region to demonstrate how integrated agricultural and public health innovations, implemented through community initiatives and public policy interventions, can provide an effective approach to address the high burden of non-communicable diseases in the Caribbean.