Prior to teaching at Monmouth, Professor Paz-Gonzalez taught public health courses at William Paterson University of New Jersey. Professor Paz-Gonzalez is born and raised in northern New Jersey and is passionate about working on social, health and community justice issues that impact communities of color.

Lazara is currently employed at Healthcare Quality Strategies Inc. where she supports direct service providers and other agencies to reach federal quality standards for Medicare patients. Prior to this, Professor Paz-Gonzalez was the Director of Health & Wellness at the Hetrick-Martin Institute (HMI) in New York City. There she oversaw all day-to-day functions of the Health and Wellness Team and supportive staff, evaluating the effectiveness of interventions for LGBTQ youth. She was responsible for the implementation of programmatic outreach, along with sustainable partnerships to support linkages within the larger community.

Professor Paz-Gonzalez has more than 15 years of experience in public health program development and implementation focused on community mobilization, organizational/leadership/Board development and data analysis, predominantly among marginalized communities. She has worked on a variety of health initiatives throughout New York, New Jersey, Nevada, California & Washington, DC, including developing, implementing and managing health programs for multicultural and diverse populations that focus on cancer, HIV/AIDS, STDs & other reproductive health issues. Lazara has assisted in the development of youth and womyn empowerment models focused on improving quality of life and enhancing community participation within communities of color.

Area Specialization: Health Education, Cultural Competence, LGBTQIA+ Health, Reproductive & Sexual Health Education, Family Planning & Counseling, Gender-Affirming Health Prevention Strategies, Disease Investigation, STD/Is, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, Cancer

Academic Achievements

LGBTQ Scholar of Color Fellow, selected by The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies @ the City University of New York (2015)

Lead The Way Fellow (selected), Center For Research And Policy In The Public Interest at the New York Women’s Foundation, NYC (August 2015)

UCLA Minority Training Program in Cancer Control Research (MTPCCR), Graduate, Los Angeles, CA (May 2010)

Education

M.P.H., University of Nevada, Las Vegas

B.S., William Paterson University of New Jersey

CHES, Certified Health Education Specialist, National Commission for Health Education Credentialing, Inc. (2007 – 2012)

Scholarly Articles

Joseph D. Khoury; Dorothy M. Adcock; Fanny Chan; James T. Symanowski; Stefan Tiefenbacher; Oscar Goodman; Lazara Paz; Yupo Ma; David C. Ward; Nicholas J. Vogelzang; Louis M. Fink. Increases in Quantitative D-dimer Levels Correlate with Progressive Disease Better than Circulating Tumor Cell Counts in Patients with Refractory Prostate Cancer. American Journal of Clinical Pathology. 2010; 134 (6):964-969.

Innovative approaches to increase parent-child communication about sexuality: Their impact and examples from the field (2002). New York, NY: Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS).