Shelley White-Means is an American health economist who is a professor at The University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), and director of the Consortium for Health Education, Economic Empowerment and Research (CHEER) at UTHSC.
[3] She planned to become an accountant until she was awarded a full scholarship to Grinnell College and studied economics, and realized it could be a pathway to improving health care in her home city.
[4] White-Means began her career as a faculty member in the Consumer Economics Department of Cornell University, before returning to Memphis to join the faculty of the University of Memphis.
She is founder and director of the Consortium on Health Education, Economic Empowerment and Research (CHEER), which focuses on education and active community engagement to reduce health disparities in Memphis and Shelby County.
[5][6] She is the author or co-author of dozens of publications, and was awarded the 2009 Rufus A. Lyman Award for the best paper published in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education that year.