Lourdes Baez Conde, PhD

Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati, PhD, MPH, is Distinguished Professor in Population and Public Health Sciences (DPHHS) and Senior Associate Dean for Community and Workforce Development Initiatives at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. Dr. Baezconde-Garbanati is also a Member of the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center where she is Associate Director for Community Outreach and Engagement (COE). She is in a Multiple PI structure in the Office of Community Engagement of the Southern California Clinical Translation Institute (CTSI), and oversees community efforts in the DPPHS. She oversees the Center for Health Enhancement (CenHealth) which has provided health information especially in times of crisis to the public, such as during the Wildfires in Los Angeles in 2025. She has a Courtesy Appointment at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Her work is known for its creativity, and transdisciplinary nature, where academic disciplines and community talent converge with ingenuity to produce unique programs of research that advance science while fulfilling community needs. She develops and tests innovative interventions that help modify risk factors and reduce the burden of cancer and other chronic diseases in the population. She teaches courses in health promotion and disease prevention and on community engagement for health. She has mentored some 300 students in research from undergraduates to doctoral and postdoctoral fellows and is widely sought out as a mentor among Junior Faculty. She is strongly engaged in community participatory and population-based research and serves as a community/academic broker for community grounded research. For these purposes she has developed a bidirectional system of communication between communities and academic settings, based on participatory principles and shared resources with communities through community advisory boards. Dr. Baezconde-Garbanati has a strong record of extramural funding from the National Institutes of Health, including the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. She received a prestigious transformative RO1 from the NCI to look at the role of narrative in the delivery of cancer messages to community audiences. Her work on narrative has been done with a team from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and the USC School of Cinema. Dr. Baezconde-Garbanati has received multiple awards and recognition for her work, and is well published in a variety of relevant topics. She received the NIH 10 Year Common Fund Award and the American Public Health Association Health Education and Health Promotion Award for her educational film on cervical cancer to reduce the cancer burden. Another of her signature programs is It’s Time, a project to increase cervical cancer screening in East Los Angeles. It’s Time was developed in collaboration with the Art Center College of Design, Designmatters program, and is a key signature program of the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. In addition to these films and programs, she has worked on 6 other films including Granny’s Birthday, Of Reasons and Rumors, and Team Player, and has supported the production of another three educational films with the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Dr. Baezconde-Garbanati earned an MPH and a PhD in public health with an emphasis in Community Health Sciences from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She can be reached at [email protected].

• American Association for Cancer Research: Outstanding Services to the Research Community, 2024
• Fielding School of Public Health, UCLA: Induction into the Public Health Hall of Fame, 2023
• University of Southern California: Distinguished Professor, 2023
• Fielding School of Public Health, UCLA: Lester Breslow Lifetime Achievement Award, 2023
• Lazarex Cancer Foundation: Hands of Hope Award, 2022
• Celebrate Life Cancer Ministry: Humanitarian of Hope Award, 2022
• National Library of Medicine: Board of Regents, 2019
   – 2023
• NIH Director’s award: Winner of the National Institutes of Health Common Fund 10-Year Commemoration Video Contest, 2014
• National Institutes of Health: Transforming Cancer Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviors (cervical cancer), NIH-10 Year Common Fund, 2014
• American Public Health Association: Cervical cancer film, Public Health Education and Health Promotion Best Multimedia Award, 2013
• HCI International Conference on Technology: Technology-based Medical Interpretation for Cross-Language Communication: In person, telephone, vide, 2013
• The George Mason University, 2013 Health Communication Conference: Winner of the Top Scientific Translational Research Award, 2013
• University of California Irvine (UCI) Chancellor’s Commendation for Outstanding Community Based-Part: UCI Chancellor’s Award in Clinical and Translational Science, 2011
• Design Conference: It’s Time Award, 2011
• California State Senate, 34th Senate District: Certificate of Recognition for National Community Based Participatory Research, 2011
• U.S. House of Representatives: Certificate of Congressional Recognition in recognition of extraordinary dedication and continued ef, 2011
• St. Vincent Medical Center Multicultural Health Awareness and Prevention Center in Partnership wit: Obesity and Nutrition Award Leadership, 2010
• National Cancer Institute and the American Legacy Foundation: Recognition for Services to the Research Community, 2010
• Annual Design Review Exhibition, Best Category in the Student Division in 2010: It’s Time Award, 2010
• Mike Davis, 48th Assembly District, California State Legislature: Certificate of Recognition for Outstanding Contributions and Community Service, 2010
• California Tobacco Education and Research Oversight Committee, State of California: In honor and appreciation of dedicated and distinguished services, 2009
• National Cancer Institute: Certificate in recognition of valuable contributions to the Cancer Information Services (CIS), 2009
• Research America: An Alliance for Discoveries in Health: Public Health Hero Award, 2009
• Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers: 2004-2005, 2004
   – 2005
• Journal of the National Medical Association: Award for Excellence, Outstanding Performance and Lasting Contributions as Scientific Journal Revi, 2004
• Society for Prevention Research: Community, Culture and Prevention Science Award, 2001
• American Public Health Association, Latino Caucus: Most Distinguished Career Award, 1999

• Transforming Cancer Knowledge, Attitudes and Behavior through Narrative
  NIH · R01CA144052 · Sep 29, 2009 – May 31, 2016 · Role: Co-Principal Investigator
• Southern CA Center for Chronic Disease in Children and Families
  NIH · P50MD017344 · Role: I am the CoDirector of the Center and Lead on the Community Core
• Center for Optimization of Patient Engagement and Cancer Characterization
  NIH/NCI · U2CCA252971 · Role: Lead PI on the Engagement Optimization Unit

• Aquí y Ahora: Cigarrillos Electrónicos (05/25/2014)
• Feature story highlighting 1-855-DEJELO-YA (08/01/2013)
• Coffee Break, TV Azteca's morning show that airs nationally (07/13/2013)
• Telemundo Los Angeles's morning show (06/19/2013)

• Unger, Jennifer
• Leventhal, Adam
• Barrington-Trimis, Jessica
• Sussman, Steven
• Matsuo, Koji
• Harlow, Alyssa