Dr. Carpten is the Associate Director for Basic Research at USC Norris. In this role, he fosters high impact cancer discovery research and facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration to transform laboratory discoveries into new cures. Dr. Carpten brings considerable leadership experience as Chair of the Department of Translational Genomics and the Translational Genomics Institute at USC. He also served as co-leader of the Translational and Clinical Sciences Research Program at Norris. Dr. Carpten is an internationally recognized leader in cancer genomics and precision oncology, as well as a pioneer in investigating the biology behind disparities in cancer outcomes among populations. As a internationally recognized genomic scientist and cancer cell biologist, Dr Carpten leads multiple grants including an NCI U54 and a new NCI U2C Moonshot grant, both focused on the biology of cancer disparities. 

Previous to his recruitment to USC’s faculty, Carpten served as deputy director of basic sciences and professor and division director of integrated cancer genomics at the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Arizona. Before that, he was a tenure-track independent investigator at the National Human Genome Research Institute, where he had pursued his postdoctoral training after earning his doctorate from Ohio State University. He received his baccalaureate degree from Lane College in Tennessee.