Dr. María Idalí Torres has been named the new Director of the Mauricio Gaston Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy effective January 2009. A medical anthropologist with a PhD from the University of Connecticut, Dr. Torres' research has focused on the promotion, protection and maintenance of health among Latino women and their families. Dr. Torres, in addition to her post as director of the Institute, will hold a joint faculty appointment in the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Public Policy. Dr Torres has a long experience in planning, implementing and evaluating health programs in schools and community settings. Her scholarship promotes community capacity, combines trans-disciplinary orientations and uses participatory research methodologies and partnerships with community residents and organizations.
An accomplished scholar, her research interests include sexual health education, cultural explanatory models of health, participatory health education and intervention, community organizing and health development, and Latina women's health. Dr. Torres' most recent research, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, focuses on sexual health promotion and has been published in a book Sexual and Reproductive Health Promotion in Latino Populations (2003; Baywood Publishing), and articles in the International Quarterly of Community Health Education and in the Puerto Rico Health Sciences Journal. Her work has also appeared the American Journal of Public Health, Human Organization and Health Education and Behavior. Dr. Torres has been the recipient of numerous grants and contracts as the principal or co-principal investigator and she has served as consultant on health projects involving women and children at the local, state and national levels.