Bio
Stanford Advancing Health Equity and Diversity (AHEaD)
ahead.stanford.edu
Founding Co-Director (2020-present)
Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS)
Executive Director (2022-present)
Cancer Core Co-Director (2016-present)
International Workshop on HIV and Hepatitis Observational Databases (IWHOD)
iwhod.org
Chair, Scientific Secretariat (2024-present)
Dr. Lesley Park is a co-founding director of the Stanford AHEaD summer research program for college students from underrepresented and historically excluded groups in the health sciences. She is also the Executive Director of the VACS consortium, an international collaboration of methodologists, clinicians, and trainees who utilize the rich and valuable data from the Veterans Health Administration to do impactful research. VACS has been at the forefront of research to understand aging with HIV to improve patient care, particularly with respect to alcohol and other substance use, physiologic frailty, and polypharmacy. In recent years, the VACS mission has expanded to encompass other foci, including genomic research and most recently COVID-19.
Within the VACS, Dr. Park oversees cancer and COVID-19 outcomes research in persons with HIV/AIDS (PWH). Her research experience has focused on the intersection of cancer and HIV, examining epidemiologic methods for cancer research, cancer incidence trends, and cancer (particularly hepatocellular carcinoma) prevention in PWH. Dr. Park is an experienced epidemiologist, skilled in "big data" observational research, survival analysis, and SAS programming. She teaches courses in computing, data management, and epidemiologic analysis methods. Her prior experience includes research at the Yale School of Medicine and at the Center for Biostatistics in AIDS Research (CBAR) at the Harvard School of Public Health.
The International Workshop on HIV and Hepatitis Observational Databases (IWHOD) is an established scientific forum for the appropriate application of real-world data to emerging issues in infectious disease. Dr. Park leads the IWHOD scientific committee of internationally reknowned experts in infectious disease and is responsible for administrative and scientific coordination of IWHOD.
Previously, Dr. Park was one of the leaders of the Stanford Center for Population Health Sciences (PHS). PHS aims to improve the health of populations by bringing together diverse disciplines and data to understand and address social, environmental, behavioral, and biological factors. She oversaw all of the educational and training initiatives at PHS and was one of the founding directors of the PHS Data Center and PHS Postdoctoral Fellowship program.
