Rina Alcalay is Professor Emeritus, Department of Public Health Sciences, UC Davis Medical School. Previously, she served on the faculty at the UCLA School of Public Health. She received a BA in Sociology at the Catholic University of Chile (her country of origin) and was professor and Chair of the Communication Research Department, Escuela Artes de la Comunicación of the Catholic University.
Dr. Alcalay has a Ph.D. in Communication from Stanford University, and did post doctoral studies in Health Psychology at UC San Francisco Medical School. Her area of expertise is health communication, with an emphasis on media campaigns in cross-cultural and international settings. She designed, implemented and evaluated numerous health education/promotion campaigns. She conducted research and published extensively in areas such as heart disease prevention, cancer control, smoking prevention and cessation, perinatal care, nutrition, mental health and international health promotion.
In her capacity as a health communication expert, Dr. Alcalay served as a consultant and/or committee member for agencies such as the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; National Cancer Institute; National Institute of Aging; American Cancer Society; National Red Cross; Pan American Health Organization, Academy of Education; International Union Against Cancer; Carnegie Foundation; California Wellness Foundation; the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and was a member of the Secretary of Health’s Advisory Council for the National, Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NIH, during the Clinton Administration.