As Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs, a position she has held since 2011, Dr. Garner provides oversight of the Office for Faculty Affairs, in the Dean's office. This office is responsible for appointments, promotions and tenure, recruitment and hiring, end of employment, mentoring, evaluation and merit review, faculty salaries and compensation, problems and personnel records. The Office for Faculty Affairs acts as the human resource solution for all Keck School of Medicine Faculty.

Dr. Garner has over 30 years of experience in an academic medical center as a researcher, teacher, professor, advisor and administrator. In her 33-year career as a faculty member in the Department of Cell and Neurobiology at the Keck School of Medicine, Dr. Garner has consistently been involved in numerous faculty service organizations, including the faculty executive council, the salary advisory committee, the tenure, priveleges and appeals committee, probationary deadlines committee, and numerous faculty senate committees and task forces.

In the past, Dr. Garner served as assistant dean for faculty affairs from 2004 to 2008, senior associate dean for faculty affairs from 2008 to 2001, and associate provost for faculty development at USC, a position she held from 2007 until 2011. In the latter role, she helped coordinate and further faculty growth and development initiatives across both campuses with particular emphasis on mentoring activities of the USC Provost's office, and the creation of a university-wide culture of mentoring.

In addition to her dedication to faculty development, Dr. Garner is also an award-winning teacher (she headed the neuroscience section of the medical school curriculum for 12 years) and a successful researcher in the field of cellular neuroscience. She has directed numerous National Institutes of Health grants, served on multiple study sections, and has most recently been involved in research on intracellular transport of viruses in neurons and epithelial cells.

Dr. Garner earned her bachelor's degree in biology and her Ph.D. in anatomy and neurobiology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.