Associate Director

Shauna A. Clark, Ph.D. serves as the inaugural Senior Diversity Advisor to the Center for Cancer Research (CCR) Director at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH), where she spends her time developing and implementing policies and programs to make CCR a more diverse and inclusive environment while highlighting and creating opportunities for historically underrepresented scientists to join NIH faculty. She is committed to ensuring that all who want to participate in scientific endeavors not only have the opportunity to do so, but also feel valued, supported, and included.

Prior to her role as the CCR Senior Diversity Advisor, Dr. Clark was the Director of the NIH Academy, a health disparities program for fellows/trainees at NIH.  As the Director, Shauna oversaw its growth to an impressive, multi-faceted recruitment program.  Moreover, Dr. Clark has been deeply immersed in multiple efforts to educate future public health professionals, clinicians, and researchers about health disparities while creating a more diverse scientific workforce by facilitating the participation of groups that have been historically underrepresented in science.  Her work has been recognized with several NIH Honor Awards, including multiple NIH Director’s Awards for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.

Shauna completed her undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Texas A&M University and earned a Ph.D. from the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. She completed postdoctoral work with the Liver Diseases Branch in the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. 

Program Staff

Sonia A. Garcia, Ph.D., graduated from Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C. in 2015 with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and minor in Biochemistry and Language and Cultural Studies. Dr. Garcia attained a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, Baltimore in Baltimore, Maryland in the Molecular Medicine Graduate Program with a Cancer Biology focus. Dr. Garcia has presented her research both during in-person and virtual scientific conferences, where she won two first place awards for her research talks. Sonia currently serves as a Scientific Diversity Program Manager in the Office of Equity & Inclusion in the Center for Cancer Research (CCR) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). During her leisure time, Dr. Garcia loves traveling and attending concerts. Dr. Garcia comes from a big family. She has 8 siblings and loves spending time with her family and pets.

Timothy Watts, M.P.H., serves as the Diversity and Inclusion Resource Specialist in the Office of Equity and Inclusion working to develop and promote practices, policies, and procedures to foster civility, belonging, equity and inclusion at CCR. 

Previously, Timothy served as the first Health Equity Coordinator for the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department. He has been steeped in Public Health Work for over 15 years in a variety of settings, including serving as a Program Coordinator with the Department of Health and Environmental Control for the State of South Carolina. Timothy also previously worked with the American Red Cross’ Preparedness, Health, and Safety Division.

Tim’s preferred pronouns are: “He/Him/그의,” and he is a proud alum of the University of Georgia. Timothy enjoys spending time with his wife and daughter, cooking, playing music, and is an avid fan of many Georgia and Atlanta-area sports teams.