Dr. Thenral Mangadu, MD., MPH., PHD., is the Associate Vice President for Health and Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), the Peter de Wetter endowed Professor Health Sciences, and the Director of the Minority AIDS Research Center. She is the founding director of the Institute for Health and Lifespan Research (IHLR). Dr. Mangadu' s research expertise are in the areas of Health Disparities, Global and Rural Health, Substance Use Disorder, Mental Health and related disparities, Maternal and Child healthspan, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning applications in Health and, Public Health Program Evaluation. She and her community-based multi-sectorial teams implement multiple large-scale regional applied and intervention research and service programs addressing health and lifespan for communities across West Texas. Dr. Mangadu is particularly committed to addressing the healthcare professional shortage in rural and Medically Underserved Areas (MUAs) locally and globally through community capacity building and workforce development. Her research, prevention and treatment programs and workforce development initiatives have received funding support from organizations including the National Institute of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), US Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), US Department of Justice (DOJ), US Department of Education (ED) and, State agencies and Private foundations. Dr. Mangadu has over 25+ years of experience in community engaged healthspan research and program implementation.