Nancy Clifton-Hawkins is a seasoned public health professional with a unique ability to transcend cultural boundaries and provide program deliverables in the most culturally sensitive and appropriate manner. As director of community benefit for City of Hope, she leads the organization’s efforts to appropriately address health inequities of the most vulnerable communities within its Southern California service area.

She started her career in the Peace Corps, working in Thailand for three years in her 20s. As an agricultural extension agent, partnering with a nutritionist, she experienced the value of building community and honoring someone’s culture as a way of helping people live healthy lives. She has applied that philosophy throughout a career of promoting public health. 

She has two master’s degrees from Loma Linda University: in public health promotion and education, and in global health. She worked inside a healthcare agency before starting her own business providing public health program planning, evaluation and curriculum design as a consultant. In Southern California she has worked extensively in the Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Mexican, South and Central American, Black American, and White American communities. She welcomes any work effort that places her in a position to work collaboratively with country nationals to build programs that are both appropriate and sustainable.