Sonya Sutton is currently the Communications Specialist for the UNC Center of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention (HPDP) and also serves as a project director for health communications research projects. She completed the UNC Medical Journalism Program in May 2005. She was a Roy H. Park Fellow and graduate research assistant on the Teen Media project for both years of the program.

Sutton coordinates the content of the HPDP website, publicity for HPDP activities and all internal communications activities for HPDP researchers. In September 2007, Sutton helped plan the HPDP 21st Anniversary Celebration and created all print and web materials for the event.  She represents the Center at University communicator meetings and maintains Center-wide publication and publicity databases.

She also coordinates a seminar series on Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) and manages the CBPR Training Core of the Carolina Community Network (CCN), a project focused on reducing health disparities in prostate, breast and colorectal cancers.  She serves as a researcher on a project focused on helping North Carolina grantmaking agencies incorporate more evidence-based practices into their grants.

From 2005 to 2006, she was the project director of a social marketing project targeting teens and young adult smokers. The project combined marketing and public health expertise to create recommendations to promote the NC Quitline to youth and also developed website content for the NC 100% Tobacco-Free Schools website.

Sutton received a BSPH in health policy and administration from UNC-CH in May 2000. After graduation, she worked at RTI International in Research Triangle Park, N.C. where she served as project manager for the RTI-UNC Evidence-based Practice Center. Sutton's responsibilities included managing project budgets, timelines, coordinating external peer review and production of reports and editing journal articles before submission. She worked on several evidence reviews for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, as well as reports on determining disability in speech and language disorders, management of bronchiolitis, CBPR, health literacy, and rating the strength and quality of scientific evidence.

Her interests include health communications, online communications, health literacy, preventive medicine, and evidence-based practices. She lives in Hillsborough with her husband, daughter and dog.