Dr. Chakkalakal's research focuses on reducing the burden of type 2 diabetes in women from vulnerable populations. She is especially interested in developing and testing lifestyle modification programs to decrease the incidence of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) after a diagnosis of gestational diabetes (GDM) in women from vulnerable populations. In addition to that, Dr. Chakkalakal conducts secondary analyses of large datasets (AHRQ Healthcare Utilization Project, State Birth Certificate Data) to identify differences in health according to race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and gender. She further characterizes these disparities using longitudinal cohort studies and addresses these differences by developing and implementing community-based interventions focused on behavior modification. Dr. Chakkalakal is a Co-Investigator for the NIDDK-funded Public-Private Partnership Addressing Literacy/Numeracy to Improve Diabetes Care (PRIDE) study at Vanderbilt and is currently the Principal Investigator for a Pilot and Feasibility Grant awarded through the NIDDK-funded Vanderbilt Center for Diabetes Translation Research (CDTR) entitled “Weight Changes During and After Pregnancy in Women with Gestational Diabetes.” She was also recently selected for the VUMC Faculty Research Scholars Program.