Dr. Lucinda (Cindy) Rankin

For the past 40+ years Lucinda (Cindy) Rankin, PhD. has been immersed in multiple facets across University of Arizona and is driven by the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and community engagement to enable students and faculty to thrive. Working to explore and optimize effective teaching at the course, curriculum, and university levels, she has developed and taught more than 20 different courses for gen-ed freshmen, physiology undergraduates, interdisciplinary graduate and medical students, and served as research mentor for numerous honors and graduate students, gathering multiple teaching awards along the way. She has been a member and past chair of the UA General Education Committee, co-chair of the recent General Education Review task force, member of the UA Undergraduate Council and AZMed Education Policy Committee, recent American Physiological Society Education Fellow, Educational Director for NIH Motor Control Graduate Training program, and is presently Co-Chair of SPBAC as part of shared governance. Focusing on programs that facilitate student success in both life and career, she founded and serves as director of the Physiology Honors Academy (since 2003) to support undergraduate research, the PhysioWorks program (since 2015) to provide opportunities for truly engaged learning in the lab, clinic and Tucson community, and the Physiology Ambassadors to help create a bridge for new and future physiology students and their families. Developing the Physiology Teaching Workshop (2005), she collaborates with faculty across campus, Arizona, and US to jumpstart graduate assistants in their new teaching endeavors.  Serving 8 years as UA Research Integrity Officer, she helped raise awareness and ensure ethical approaches to research across the UA community.  Now as the Executive Director of a new UAHS K-12 Health Sciences Initiative, she is working with a team to increase health literacy in K-8 and high school /JTED students across southern Arizona. Through collaborations across Pima County, Dr. Rankin seeks to connect UA expertise and enthusiasm with multiple community organizations: as an elected 9yr member of the Pima County JTED School District Governing Board and philanthropy committee member for Ballet Tucson, as past member and Vice-President of Education for the Arizona Chapter of the American Parkinson’s Disease Association Board of Directors and past board member of the Tucson Mountain Association.