She earned a B.S. and M.S. in community health from the University of Iowa, and a Ph.D. in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research from the University of Nebraska. Dr. Frerich’s research is focused on the intersection of community-based participatory research and systems science to address health disparities, largely in the area of chronic disease prevention. She has experience working with diverse communities including American Indian, Latino, and African Americans to develop, implement, and evaluate community-based interventions and policies. Her work has had a major focus on understanding and developing interventions that target social and physical environment influences on youth’s health behaviors in underserved communities.