Dr. Galen Joseph, Ph.D. is a Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She is also a member of the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and Affiliate Faculty with the Center for Vulnerable Populations at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. As an anthropologist, she specializes in ethnographic approaches, but uses a range of mixed qualitative and quantitative methods and community-based participatory research to investigate issues affecting vulnerable and medically underserved populations across the cancer continuum and in the context of the translation of new genomic technologies to clinical settings. She is particularly interested in communication across language, literacy and culture and has developed interventions for healthcare interpreters and genetic counselors to ensure that limited English speakers have equitable access to advances in precision medicine.

Key areas of interest include: genomic medicine, translational medicine, clinical trials recruitment, clinical trials education, health communication and health literacy, cancer, migration, globalization, and identity.