Dr. Chanita Hughes Halbert serves as the Vice Chair for Research, Professor in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, and Associate Director for Cancer Equity at the University of Southern California. She is a nationally recognized leader in cancer prevention and minority health research. She has dedicated her career to reducing the disparities in cancer outcomes that affect patients from underrepresented communities, with a primary focus on African American communities. Among her many achievements, she has identified sociocultural, psychological, genetic and environmental determinants of cancer health disparities and translates this information into interventions to improve health equity among racially and ethnically diverse populations, as well as other medically underserved groups.For her many contributions, Hughes Halbert was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2017.
In addition to her election to the National Academy of Medicine, Hughes Halbert received the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Control Award in 2010. President Barack Obama appointed her to the National Cancer Institute’s Board of Scientific Advisors in 2012, and in 2014 she joined the National Advisory Council of the National Human Genome Research Institute. The American Association for Cancer Research named her chair of its Minorities in Cancer Research Council the same year, and she received the AACR Distinguished Lecture Award on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities, funded by the Susan G. Komen Foundation, in 2018. She earned her master’s and doctoral degrees from Howard University after graduating summa cum laude from Hampton University.