Dr. Marlene Camacho-Rivera

Assistant Dean for Student Affairs and Assistant Professor of Community Health Sciences at SUNY Downstate School of Public Health

Dr. Camacho-Rivera is the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs and an Assistant Professor of Community Health Sciences at SUNY Downstate School of Public Health. Dr. Camacho-Rivera received her doctoral and masters degrees in Social Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health, an MPH in Health Policy and Management from Tufts University, and a BS in Biology and Society from Cornell University. Dr. Camacho-Rivera has additional postdoctoral training in cancer epidemiology from the Feinstein Institute at Northwell Health.

A social epidemiologist by training, Dr. Camacho-Rivera’s research focuses on elucidating structural and social determinants of chronic disease inequities among urban racial and ethnic minoritized communities and exploring patterns and determinants of within-group heterogeneity in chronic disease outcomes within racially minoritized communities. Dr. Camacho-Rivera translates this research into the design, implementation, and evaluation of community-engaged multilevel and structural interventions to advance chronic disease prevention, improve self-management, and increase engagement in care.

Dr. Camacho-Rivera has a strong commitment to strengthening and diversifying the public health and medical workforce through education and training programs. Her scholarship and practice seek to incorporate structural and social determinants of health education into the training of health professionals across the public health pipeline.

She serves as PI of the NIMHD-funded Downstate Clinical Research Scholars Training Program, which supports the development of clinician-scientists to advance health equity research and practice. She also serves as Co-PI of the HRSA-funded Downstate Public Health Scholarship Program to recruit individuals from educationally disadvantaged communities into public health practice within medically underserved areas. She is the Downstate PI and Development Core lead for the NCI-funded SoCa Center, a tri-institutional partnership between Weill Cornell, Columbia, and Downstate, to address cancer inequities within persistent poverty areas. Dr. Camacho-Rivera serves as the academic director of Downstate's NIMHD-funded Community Science Training Program, designed to increase capacity among CBOs to secure external funding and increase engagement in research partnerships, and the Downstate PI of a PCORI Advancing the Science of Engagement award, to strengthen the community-academic partnerships by surfacing the challenges that individuals face when engaging in research and prioritizing community-centered strategies to ensure bi-directional and meaningful partnerships on research studies.