Cynthia Gonzalez, PhD

Cynthia Gonzalez is an assistant professor in the Department of Urban Public Health at Charles R. Drew University (CDU) and Director of the Pardee RAND Graduate School’s PhD Program in Policy Analysis focused on the Community-Partnered Policy and Action. As a first-generation Mexican-American lifetime resident of Watts (a neighborhood in South Los Angeles), she brings a strong background in community based participatory research, cultural anthropology, and social ethnography to the understanding of community health with a pedagogy rooted in equity, social justice, critical engagement, and multidisciplinary scholarship. Dr. Gonzalez has developed place-based initiatives through community engagement and neighborhood assessments to improve the quality of life for racial/ethnic minoritized residents living in under-resourced neighborhoods. She has developed partnerships between community, government, and academia through efforts such as the Watts Community Studio and Los Angeles Promise Zone Young Ethnographers Program that led to the development of a neighborhood collaborative of over 50 cross-sectoral members receiving over $120M in community infrastructure for wellbeing, known as the Watts Rising Collaborative. She is a proud mentee of Dr. Keith Norris from the NIH-NIDDK High School Student Summer Research Program.