Nabarun Dasgupta, an epidemiologist and researcher with UNC’s Gillings School of Public Health, is the latest Chapel Hill faculty member to earn a MacArthur Foundation fellowship.
The private philanthropic organization announced its 2025 class of MacArthur Fellows on Wednesday, with Dasgupta among 22 people selected for the five-year grants, which come with no conditions. He was chosen for his work in harm reduction efforts through scientific research, leading UNC’s Opioid Data Lab as part of the university’s Injury Prevention Center. His projects aim to prevent opioid-related deaths and harmful drug use by informing users what substances are in their supplies and distributing antidotes to communities where it could reserve overdoses.
“Our mission is science in service,” Dasgupta said through a university release about his fellowship. “We want people to have access to the best knowledge and tools, so they can make better decisions about what they put in their bodies. This award is a testament to hundreds of community programs and health departments we serve, where lifesaving work happens.”
Dasgupta spoke with 97.9 The Hill in May to detail his lab’s work and how a harm reduction approach can help save more lives, further describing his lab’s work as a “public service.”
“What we do that’s different from the traditional research paradigm is that we provide results directly back to the individuals who provided the samples using a QR code that’s part of the kits that we developed,” he said. “This is one of the specific ways in which we are going beyond the research and turning this moment of overdose crisis into a way for us to help people on the front lines.”
Dasgupta joined the UNC community to earn his PhD. Since graduating with the degree in 2013, he has worked as a senior scientist with the Injury Prevention Research Center and was named an Innovation Fellow at the Gillings School in 2020. Since then, several of his studies have been published by leading academic journals. His harm reduction advocacy goes beyond the laboratory as well, having founded a pair of nonprofits meant to expand access to naloxone, a fast-acting drug used to help reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. Project Lazarus focused on North Carolina’s Wilkes County in 2007, while Remedy Alliance/For The People was founded in 2020 to provide free or low-cost naloxone across the country. Now, it supplies more than 500 organizations helping drug users and community members have access to the antidote and have shipped more than 6 million doses since being founded.
“Nabarun Dasgupta is such a fitting recipient of this prestigious recognition as the first Gillings Innovation Fellow as well as Senior Scientist at the UNC Injury Prevention Research Center,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, dean of the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, said in UNC’s release. “He specializes in turning research into practice, and through his work, he amplifies community and patient voices in public health and provides innovative health-tech and community-based solutions… His originality, insight and potential are just a few of the values he shares with the MacArthur Fellowship, and we are immensely proud of his dedication, selflessness and accomplishments.”
With the award, Dasgupta becomes the third MacArthur Fellow among UNC’s faculty in the program’s history. Former Chancellor and then-sports science researcher Kevin Guskiewicz earned the grant in 2011, followed by professor and author Tressie McMillian Cottom in 2020.
To listen to 97.9 The Hill’s full interview with Dasgupta in May about his research and the latest U.S. data on opioid deaths, click here.
Featured photo via the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
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