Lovell Jones, Ph.D.

Lovell Jones, Ph.D. is currently a research professor at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi and an adjunct professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Community Health Sciences at Texas A&M School of Public Health. Upon his retirement, Dr. Jones became the first African American to be awarded professor emeritus status at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center as well as the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, simultaneously becoming the first African American in the University of Texas System to hold dual emeritus status. He is a former director of the joint University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center/University of Houston Dorothy I. Height Center for Health Equity & Evaluation Research.

Dr. Jones has spent almost half a century addressing equity issues, especially focusing on minority health and the health of underserved people. As a scientist, he has also done extensive research into the relationships between hormones, diet, and endocrine-responsive tumors and has presented his work both nationally and internationally. He has edited Minorities and Cancer, one of the few comprehensive textbooks on this subject.

Dr. Jones has chaired or co-chaired numerous events about underserved people and cancers, including the American Cancer Society South Central U.S. Regional Hearings on Cancer and the Poor and the first National African Cancer Education meeting in Abuja, Nigeria. He is co-author of the congressional resolution designating the third full week in April “National Minority Cancer Awareness Week.” The NIH National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities awarded him its Director’s Award for Excellence in Health Disparities in 2013. Dr. Jones has also received the Ruth Kirschstein Diversity in Science Award and was selected as one of the top African-American scientists in the United States by the National Science Foundation. Most recently, he was honored by American Society of Cell Biology with the 2020 Ernest Everett Just Award and listed as one of 1,000 inspiring Black scientists. Dr. Jones’ biography is now part of the HistoryMakers archive in the Library of Congress.

Dr. Jones’ research work also involves determining the mechanism by which natural and environmental estrogenic agents may initiate cancers in hormonally responsive tissue. He has served as the principal investigator (PI) on a number of NIH grants, including the Women’s Healthy Eating and Living Study, examining the role of diet in preventing recurrence in breast cancer survivors. Dr. Jones also served as the PI of several major grants directly focused on addressing health inequities, including a grant for the Excellence in Partnerships for Community Outreach, Research on Health Disparities, and Training from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities and a cancer prevention and treatment demonstration grant from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

In January 2000, Dr. Jones was named the first director of the congressionally mandated Center for Research on Minority Health (CRMH), a multidisciplinary center whose aims were to foster research that addresses the causes of health disparities and translates scientific results back to the communities affected by those disparities, encourage minority students to pursue careers in the biomedical sciences, and increase recruitment and retention of minority and medically underserved populations in clinical trials.

Dr. Jones received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He is married to Marion C. Jones, and they have two children and three grandchildren.