Manoj Sharma

Professor and Chair, Department of Social and Behavioral Health
Expertise: Health behavior research, Stress-coping, Integrative health (mind-body interventions), Obesity prevention, Mental health, Spirituality

Biography

Manoj Sharma is a professor and chair of the Social and Behavioral Health Department in UNLV's School of Public Health. His research interests are in developing evidence-based health promotion interventions, stress-coping, mental health, obesity prevention, integrative health, and community-based participatory research.

Sharma, a public health physician, is a master certified health education specialist with certification from the National Commission on Health Education Credentialing.  In his career, spanning over 35 years, he has trained or taught over 6,000 health professionals at 13 national and international universities. 

He is also a prolific researcher who has published 16 books, over 400 peer-reviewed research articles, and more than 500 other publications. Sharma is ranked in the top one percentile of scientists globally from 176 subfields and in the top 300 in public health by the prominent academic journal Elsevier.

Sharma has been awarded several prestigious honors, including the American Public Health Association’s J. Mayhew Derryberry Award, which honors outstanding contributions to health education research theory and recognizes outstanding behavioral scientists, as well as the organization's Lyndon Haviland Mentoring Award and Integrative, Complementary and Traditional Health Practices Impact Award. He is also the recipient of UNLV's 2024 Harry Reid Silver State Award.

Education

  • MBBS, University of Delhi
  • Ph.D., Preventive Medicine (Public Health), The Ohio State University

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Manoj Sharma In The News

The Daily Guardian
One popular school of yoga is Kundalini yoga. However, there is a lot of mystery, myths, misperceptions, and commercialization associated with it. Here I present a scientific demystification of this system of yoga. This system of yoga begins with the seventh limb of Ashtanga yoga, that of Dhyana or meditation. The purpose of this yoga is to purify the self and make the electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings of the brain subtler while one is awake so that one attains complete harmony with the environment.
New India Abroad
From a full-time MBBS doctor in India to a celebrated author and public health expert in American academia, Professor (Dr) Manoj Sharma's journey is remarkable. A distinguished graduate faculty member at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he was recently nominated by his students and received the prestigious Harry Reid Silver Slate Award 2024 for outstanding public health research.
Indica News
With heat waves breaking records this summer in various parts of the world, it has become imperative that we become aware of the signs of heat exhaustion and take proper steps to avoid it. Heat exhaustion occurs when the body overheats (gets too hot) and cannot easily restore its normal temperature if left untreated and the underlying conditions not corrected. A common cause is excessive physical activity or staying for prolonged periods of time in hot and humid weather conditions. During physical activity or exercise, the body starts to lose water through sweating and that can lead to dehydration which is a common contributor to heat exhaustion.
The Daily Guardian
The word yoga as defined in Sanskrit is Yög meaning, ‘union.’ The word is usually used in mathematics to denote the mathematical function of addition or the summing of any two numerals. The Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines yoga as “a Hindu theistic philosophy teaching the suppression of all activity of body, mind, and will in order that the self may realize its distinction from them and attain liberation.” To the uninitiated mind this definition of yoga serves no purpose and, on the contrary, presents confusion to the true significance and reason of yoga.

Articles Featuring Manoj Sharma

Scarlet and Gray, “REB's Glitter Squad”, Lester Cruz and Isabel Ferguson, take pictures and hype up students and families during the October 2022 homecoming football game.
Campus News | November 8, 2022

A collection of news stories highlighting UNLV students and faculty who made headlines locally, regionally, and internationally.