Shawna Hudson, PhD, FSBM

Dr. Shawna V. Hudson is a medical sociologist and Vice Chancellor for Dissemination and Implementation Science at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS). She also serves as Senior Associate Dean for Population Health Research, Professor, Vice Chair of Research, and Henry Rutgers Chair of Family Medicine and Community Health, and Director of the Center Advancing Research and Evaluation for Person-Centered Care (CARE-PC) at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Dr. Hudson currently serves as Associate Director of the NJ Alliance for Clinical and Translational Science (NJ ACTS), which is a Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) consortium.

Dr. Hudson is a full member of the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research. She has a secondary faculty appointment in the  Rutgers School of Public Health in the Department of Health Behavior, Society, and Policy. Dr. Hudson earned her BA from Rutgers College and her MA and PhD in Sociology from Rutgers University. She completed post-doctoral training through a New Jersey Commission on Cancer Research fellowship. 

Her research, which employs qualitative and quantitative approaches, addresses health disparities. Her work focuses on the intersections of community health, primary care, and oncology care, with a particular emphasis on chronic diseases and vulnerable populations. Her work is dedicated to empowering patients, community stakeholders, and healthcare organizations to understand and implement evidence-based guidelines for preventive healthcare and chronic disease management, thereby significantly reducing health disparities.

Dr. Hudson currently serves as an MPI (Multiple Principal Investigator) of several high-impact projects, including:

• NIH U01, ACCESS-PC: Advancing Care Coordination to Enhance Shared Care for Complex Cancer Survivors in Primary Care, focusing on improving care for cancer survivors with cardiovascular disease risks through stronger primary care-cancer care integration.
• NIH R01, Adapting and Implementing Breast Cancer Follow-up in Primary Care, aimed at supporting primary care adoption of evidence-based survivorship care strategies for breast cancer patients.
• NIH R01, Reducing Urban Cervical Cancer Disparities Using a Tailored mHealth Intervention to Enhance Colposcopy Attendance, focusing on improving follow-up care for low-income women with abnormal cervical cancer screening results.
• AHRQ/PCORI, Learning Health System Scientist Training And Research in New Jersey (LHS STAR NJ), which prepares scholars and healthcare professionals to evaluate and improve patient-centeredness, quality, and care outcomes.

Dr. Hudson is also a co-investigator on numerous studies funded by the National Cancer Institute, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

In addition to her academic and research roles, Dr. Hudson serves as Health Disparities Associate Editor for the  Journal of Cancer Survivorship. She has been appointed by the Governor to the  New Jersey Commission on Cancer Research and is a standing member of the NIH Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health Study Section. She is also Co-chair of the Rutgers Biomedical Health Sciences Emerging Signature Program in Community Health and Health Systems. She regularly reviews grants for the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and has previously served as a standing member of the NIH Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health (DIRH) Study Section.

Dr. Hudson's influence extends beyond academia. She serves as a Health Equity advisor for Bristol Myers Squibb and Stand Up to Cancer, where she contributes to shaping health equity strategies. Her recent service as a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s (NASEM) Committee on Implementing High-Quality Primary Care and Committee on Transforming Health Care to Create Whole Health: Strategies to Assess, Scale, and Spread the Whole Person Approach to Health, further demonstrating her commitment to advancing health equity on a national scale.