Judy A Garner, PhD

Currently Associate Vice President for Health Sciences Academic and Faculty Affairs, Dr. Garner serves as a liaison between the SVP for Health Affairs and the five Health Sciences Schools:
• Keck School of Medicine of USC
• USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy
• USC Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry
o Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy
o Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy
• USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology
• USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work
She works with the academic affairs and faculty affairs units within the school on faculty employment issues, faculty development, and misconduct, and on building collaborative programs among the schools.

Dr. Garner has over 40 years of experience in an academic medical center as a researcher, teacher, professor, advisor and administrator. Dr. Garner has served in numerous faculty service organizations, including the academic senate and Medical Faculty Council, the tenure, privileges and appeals committee, probationary deadlines committee, and numerous faculty senate committees and task forces. She served as the Health Professions Subcommittee Chair for the UCOC. She was an award-winning teacher (she taught in, and headed the neuroscience section of the medical school curriculum for nearly 20 years, and created numerous graduate courses and the Minor in Health Care studies). She was a successful researcher in the field of cellular neuroscience. She directed several National Institutes of Health grants, served on multiple study sections, and was involved in collaborative research on intracellular transport of viruses in neurons and epithelial cells.

Once turning to administration, she served as assistant dean for faculty affairs from 2004 to 2008, senior associate dean for faculty affairs from 2008 to 2011, and Vice Dean from 2011-2020. As Vice Dean Dr. Garner provided oversight of the KSOM Office for Faculty Affairs. This office was responsible for appointments, promotions and tenure, faculty and chair recruitment and hiring, end of employment, mentoring, evaluation and merit review, faculty salaries and compensation, problems and personnel records.

She was appointed associate provost for faculty development in the Provost’s Office at USC from 2007 until 2011. In the latter role, she helped coordinate and further faculty growth and development initiatives across both campuses with particular emphasis on mentoring activities of the Provost’s office, and the creation of a university-wide culture of mentoring. She was special advisor to the Dean from 2020-2022, and took on her current administrative role in 2022.

• Novel fiber-dependent entry mechanism for adenovirus serotype 5 in lacrimal acini J Virol. 2006 Dec; 80(23):11833-51. . View in PubMed
• Herpes simplex virion entry into and intracellular transport within mammalian cells Adv Drug Deliv Rev. 2003 Nov 14; 55(11):1497-513. . View in PubMed
• Differential anterograde transport of HSV type 1 viral strains in the murine optic pathway J Neurovirol. 1999 Apr; 5(2):140-50. . View in PubMed
• Retinal pigment epithelial cells secrete and respond to hepatocyte growth factor Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1998 Aug 10; 249(1):253-7. . View in PubMed
• Characterization of spherical amyloid protein from a prolactin-producing pituitary adenoma Acta Neuropathol. 1997 Jan; 93(1):43-9. . View in PubMed
• Type I brain hexokinase: axonal transport and membrane associations within central nervous system presynaptic terminals J Neurochem. 1996 Aug; 67(2):845-56. . View in PubMed
• Cytoplasmic matrix proteins in central nervous system presynaptic terminals: turnover and effects of osmotic lysis Brain Res. 1990 Sep 03; 526(2):186-94. . View in PubMed
• Selective alterations in presynaptic cytomatrix protein organization induced by calcium and other divalent cations that modulate exocytosis J Neurochem. 1990 May; 54(5):1700-8. . View in PubMed
• Axonal transport of neuronal antigens characteristic of subpopulations of central nervous system (CNS) neurons Metab Brain Dis. 1989 Sep; 4(3):157-67. . View in PubMed
• Differential turnover of tubulin and neurofilament proteins in central nervous system neuron terminals Brain Res. 1988 Aug 23; 458(2):309-18. . View in PubMed

• Zada, Gabriel
• Hamm-Alvarez, Sarah
• Borchert, Mark
• Feng, Pinghui