Phillip S. Gardiner, Dr. P.H. is a Public Health activist, administrator, evaluator and researcher. For the past 20 years, he has worked on studies ranging from hypertension, multiculturalism and AIDS, to breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes and smoking.
Dr. Gardiner received his Doctorate in Behavioral Sciences from the University of California at Berkeley, where he focused on Youth Violence as a public health issue. Throughout his research career, Dr. Gardiner has maintained his community activism to address racial disparities in health, through writing, organizing, evaluating and public speaking. Currently, Dr. Gardiner is the Social & Behavioral Sciences and Neurosciences and Nicotine Dependence Research Administrator for the Tobacco Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP), University of California Office of the President. Most recently, Dr. Gardiner was the national co-chair for the 2nd Conference on Mentholated Cigarettes and was part of the hard work along with other African American activists that led to the U.S. Congress adopting the menthol amendment to the FDA legislation of 2009. That legislation said in part that the Tobacco Scientific Oversight Committee of the FDA must make as its first priority a review of the scientific literature to ascertain whether there should be a prohibition on menthol in tobacco products.
Dr. Gardiner is an adjunct faculty member at Touro University in Vallejo, a graduate college for medical, pharmacy and public health students, where he teaches a class on Health Disparity and Community Organizing. Dr. Gardiner is also the leader of an independent consultant firm, Gardiner & Associates, whose main evaluation work has centered on health disparities, and is Co-Chair of the African American Tobacco control Leadership Council (AATCLC), a group of Black professionals dedicated to fighting the scourge of tobacco impacting the African American community in California.