Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati, PhD, MPH, is the Associate Director of Community Outreach and Engagement at USC Norris. 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 holds a master’s degree in medical psychology from the Universite Catholique de Louvain. She conducted her undergraduate studies obtaining a dual degree in clinical and industrial psychology at the Universidad Nacional Pedro H. Urena in Dominican Republic. 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 cultural and lifestyle risk factors for cancer and tobacco control at the community level. 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 video “Tamale Lesson”, an 11 minutes educational film on cervical cancer to reduce the cancer burden and cancer-related disparities among Latinas. Another of her signature programs is Es Tiempo, a project to increase cervical cancer screening and assess the use of the HPV vaccine among high-risk Latinas in the East Los Angeles area. Es Tiempo was developed in collaboration with the Art Center College of Design, Designmatters program, and is a key program of the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center.