The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) has appointed Anna Maria Nápoles, PhD, MPH, as scientific director of its Division of Intramural Research. Nápoles, a UC San Francisco behavioral epidemiologist, is the first Latina to be named a scientific director at the National Institutes of Health.
Nápoles has been a professor in the UCSF Division of General Internal Medicine since 2001. There, she has been at the forefront of conducting health disparities research and developing community interventions for underserved ethnic minority groups in the United States, with a focus on Latino health.
