Lovell Jones PhD

Lovell Jones, PhD, is currently a Professor at Prairie View A&M University College of Nursing and Research Professor at Texas A & M University Corpus Christi & Adjunct Professor at Texas A&M School of Public Health, Tulane University School of Public Health & Baylor College of Medicine. Upon on his retirement. Dr. Jones became the first African American to be awarded Emeritus Professor status at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center as well as at the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston. It also made him the first African American in the University of Texas System to hold dual Emeritus Status. He is the former Director of the joint UT MD Anderson Cancer Center/ University of Houston Dorothy I. Height Center for Health Equity & Evaluation Research. Dr. Jones has more than 40 years of experience in addressing minority health and the health of the underserved. As a scientist, he has also done extensive research into the relationship between hormones, diet and endocrine responsive tumors and has presented his work both nationally and internationally. He has edited one of the few comprehensive textbooks on this subject: Minorities & Cancer. Dr. Jones has either chaired or co-chaired numerous major events regarding the underserved and cancers, including the American Cancer Society South Central U.S. Regional Hearings on Cancer and the Poor and the1st National African Cancer Education meeting in Abuja, Nigeria. Dr. Jones is co-author of the congressional resolution designating the third full week in April as "National Minority Cancer Awareness Week." For his work, the NIH/National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities was awarded him its Director’s Award for Excellence in Health Disparities. Dr. Jones has also received the Ruth Kirschstein Diversity in Science Award and was selected as one of the top African American Scientist in America by the National Science Foundation “The HistoryMakers” (https:// www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/dr-lovell-jones).

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 PI on a number of NIH grants, including “The Women’s Health Eating and Living Study,” an NCI grant studying the role of diet on prevention recurrence of second primaries in breast cancer survivors. Dr. Jones also served as the PI several major grants directly focused on addressing health inequities, the Centers of Excellence for Community Partnership, Outreach, Research & Training from the National Center on Minority Health & Health Disparities and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Cancer Prevention and Treatment Demonstration grant titled: “ Facilitated Assistance, Research, & Outreach Services." Over his research career, Dr. Jones has been awarded either as Principal Investigator (PI) or Co- PI approximately $40 million in research and/ or educational grants. This does not include the grants he has served as CoInvestigator on.

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 a) foster research that addresses the causes of health disparities and translates scientific results back to the communities affected by those disparities; b) encourage minority students to pursue careers in the biomedical sciences; and c) increase recruitment and retention of minority and medically underserved populations into clinical trials.

Lastly, Dr. Jones has been thrice honored on the floor of the US Congress for his effort to address health inequities, not only nationally but internationally as well as mentioned earlier, selected by HistoryMakers as one of the top 180 African American scientists whose worked has been archived for future generations in the Library of Congress. Dr. Jones received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. He is married to Marion C. Jones, and they have two children (Troy & Tamisha) and three grandchildren (Cole, Tate & Cass).