Carol Underwood is a practice Professor at the Bloomberg School of Health at John Hopkins University. Her overarching research goal is to understand more fully the role of social, cultural, economic, and structural factors in enabling or constraining health-related actions and health outcomes in communities around the world. In particular, she strives to incorporate phenomenology, cultural studies, and critical theory into research designs to gain a deeper understanding of how social norms, social ties, and social structures affect health.