Professor and Director, Latino Research Institute
Deborah Parra-Medina, Ph.D., M.P.H., is professor of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, where she is inaugural director of the Latino Research Institute. Dr. Parra-Medina has substantial experience in health promotion, public health epidemiology, health disparities in chronic disease, and community-based interventions among under-served and minority populations. Over the past 20 years she as served as Principal Investigator for 17 grants funded for over $19 million and has published over 80 scientific articles, presented at many national, and international conferences and received awards for research, teaching and service. Dr. Parra-Medina was named Fellow by the American Academy of Health Behavior in 2016, she serves on the editorial board of several scholarly journals and in 2013 received the American Public Health Association Mayhew Derryberry Award for outstanding contributions to research in the behavioral sciences. Before joining the University of Texas at Austin in 2016, she was professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio and an associate professor at the University of South Carolina. She received her Master of Public Health from San Diego State University and her Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of California, San Diego.