Pamela Valera, PhD, MSW, ACSW, NCTTP, is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health and also an Affiliated Faculty in the School of Social Work at Rutgers University. Dr. Valera earned her Ph.D. in Social Work from the University of South Carolina, College of Social Work. She completed a three-year postdoctoral research fellowship in human immunodeficiency virus prevention and human sexuality from Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and a one-year clinical fellowship in cancer health disparities from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She has sustained several years of NIH-funded research in cancer health disparities among men with criminal justice histories at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Department of Epidemiology and Population Health and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Her research focuses on developing cancer health education programs for studying cancer prevention and exploring smoking cessation interventions in marginalized populations involved in the criminal justice system.