Michele D. Kipke, PhD is a Professor of Pediatrics and Preventative Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC), and serves as the Vice Chair of Research within the Department of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA). She is also Co-Director of the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute (SC CTSI) at USC. Dr. Kipke, a nationally known health researcher and policy expert, also directs The Saban Research Institute’s Community, Health Outcomes, and Intervention Research (CHOIR) Program at CHLA.

Dr. Kipke is the Co-PI of the NIH-funded Clinical and Translational Science Award and directs the Community Engagement and Clinical Research Services programs within the SC CTSI. She is currently providing oversight in the implementation of a new Clinical Trials Management System and development of a clinical data warehouse at USC and CHLA. As the Co-Director of the SC CTSI, Dr. Kipke provides leadership and oversight of all institute programs and operations.

Since 2013, Dr. Kipke has served as Interim Director of Clinical Research in The Saban Research Institute, including oversight of the clinical research component of the SC CTSI at CHLA. In this role, she has led efforts to streamline the clinical research process including budgeting, contracting and study start-up, revitalizing a robust clinical research infrastructure that includes research nurses, a clinical research coordinator pool, recruitment specialists and regulatory specialists. The new infrastructure provides continued education, training and support for research staff throughout the institution, as well as ongoing quality assurance monitoring and audits. In addition, she has facilitated efforts to improve the efficiency of CHLA’s Institutional Review Board, significantly reducing the turnaround time for full committee review.

Dr. Kipke received her doctorate from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. An expert on child, family, and community health, Dr. Kipke is widely published on topics that examine individual, familial, peer, and social network influences on youth involvement in risky behaviors.

Her research interests include pediatric health outcomes and services research; neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism; access and barriers to health care and disparities in health outcomes; community-level influences on health outcomes, and social epidemiology and health status/outcomes of children, adolescents, and families; community-based translational research and research with at-risk and vulnerable children and adolescents to examine risk factors associated with poor health outcomes, including HIV, injury and violence.