About Dr. Smith
Christopher (Chris) M. Smith, PhD, MSN, RN, GCQM is an Assistant Professor, tenure track, at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Smith earned his PhD from East Carolina University, where his research was shaped by resilience and adaptability, and defined by a commitment to quantitative rigor. Though his early work focused on relationships between behavioral sleep and cardiometabolic outcomes, clinic restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic forced Dr. Smith to pivot his study.
Subsequently, Dr. Smith shifted his dissertation to instrument development to cultivate his interest in psychometrics and latent variable modeling (Smith et al., 2024a, 2024b). Using the unexpected clinic restriction as a fortuitous opportunity to further develop his methodological skills, Dr. Smith earned a post-graduate certificate in Quantitative Methods for Social and Behavioral Sciences from ECU’s Department of Psychology under the supervision of Drs. Alex Schoemann and Mark Bowler. Dr. Smith’s methodological skills support his biobehavioral approach to studying psychoneuroimmunometabolism in cardiometabolic health.
Educational Background
- PhD, 2022, East Carolina University
- Post-Master Certificate, 2021, ECU Dept of Psychology
- MSN, 2018, Appalachian State University
- BSN, 2016, Appalachian State University
- ADN, 2001, Wayne Community College
Research Interest
Dr. Smith’s research program operates at the intersection of systemic neuroimmunometabolism and psychoneuroimmunology in cardiometabolic health in rural and underserved populations. His work is aimed at discovering the specific metabolic and inflammatory mechanisms that drive cardiovascular outcomes. His Human Cardiometabolic Dynamics Lab employs a biobehavioral and broad omics approach (emphasizing metabolomics and lipidomics) to map the pathways through which behavioral and environmental stressors manifest as cardiometabolic dysfunction.
Within this framework, Dr. Smith is particularly interested in developing biobehavioral models to detect immunometabolic shifts in younger populations and predict disease before long-term and irreversible health impacts occur. Dr. Smith’s research emphasizes functional lifestyle strategies that target the pillars of cardiometabolic health: nutrition, sleep hygiene, physical activity, and psychological wellness. These pillars are critical targets for improving cardiometabolic health and preventing and managing disease. Specifically, he investigates high-impact interventional strategies such as low-insulinogenic nutritional models to modulate systemic inflammation, resistance training to optimize mitochondrial density, pre-sleep optimization techniques, and contemplative meditative practices aimed at regulating the psychoneuroimmunological axis.
Dr. Smith is also interested in exploring the long-term psychoneuroimmunological impact of childhood abuse trauma on adult cardiometabolic health. He is interested specifically in how classical serotonergic psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, DMT, and mescaline) may be leveraged to facilitate trauma processing to address the upstream psychoneuroimmunological drivers of unhealthy behaviors to improve downstream immunometabolic profiles and long-term cardiovascular outcomes. Broadly, Dr. Smith’s work is dedicated to advancing health equity and person-centered care through scientifically validating functional lifestyle interventions.
Methodological Interests
Dr. Smith’s methodological interests are primarily quantitative, multivariate, based in the regression tradition, and include psychometrics, structural equation modeling, latent variable modeling, linear mixed models, hierarchical models, and mediation/moderation/conditional processes. He also appreciates mixed methods and has experience with qualitative methodologies including interpretive description and phenomenology as well as systematic review methods.
Collaboration
Dr. Smith is currently seeking collaborators.
Dr. Smith is passionate about interdisciplinary approaches to research and works well with others. He has been awarded an Academy of Medical Sciences grant, American Heart Association Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing travel grant, and two Sigma Theta Tau research grants to support his research. Dr. Smith has disseminated his research via publications and conference presentations, including the 2025 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions Conference where he presented work on how metabolic pathways differ in Black adults with heart failure with and without diabetes via moderated digital presentation.
Spare Time
Dr. Smith’s extracurricular interests include scientific writing and studying logic, philosophy (including Hellenistic varieties, Humeanism, skepticism, and causal determinism), Hatha yoga, nondual contemplative meditative philosophies (Buddhist: Dzogchen, Vipassana, Zen and Hindu: Advaita Vedanta, sādhanās, respectively), psychonautics, spirituality, and the evolution of human consciousness. Dr. Smith is active in the psychedelic science community and passionate about legislative reform aimed at re/descheduling classical psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, mescaline & DMT), as well as harm reduction strategies, education, and safe use of psychedelics as pathways toward holotropism and psychological and spiritual wellness.