Dr. Lawrence Palinkas is the Albert G. and Frances Lomas Feldman Professor of Social Policy and Health in the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work at the University of Southern California. He also holds secondary appointments as Professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Population and Public Health Sciences at USC. A medical anthropologist, his primary areas of expertise lie within mental health services research, preventive medicine, and cross-cultural medicine. 

Dr. Palinkas is particularly interested in behavioral health, global health and health disparities, implementation science, community-based participatory research, and the sociocultural and environmental determinants of health and health-related behavior. 

His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, NASA, NIH, the MacArthur Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation. Current research encompasses implementation of child and adolescent mental health services, sustainment of prevention programs and initiatives and effects of climate change on vulnerable populations.  

Dr. Palinkas is the co-lead of the Social Work Grand Challenge on Strengthening Social Responses to Environmental Change and a member of committees of the National Research Council and National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Palinkas is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Social Welfare and Social Work, a fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research, American Anthropological Association and Society for Applied Anthropology, and the author of more than 450 publications.