Roberto Ariel Vargas, MPH is Associate Director for the Center for Community Engagement and Senior Staff at the Community Engagement and Research Action Group for Equity (RAGE) Programs of UCSF’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute. Vargas has helped shape health policy and practice at the municipal and national levels on chronic disease prevention and cancer care, primarily by leveraging the expertise and multi-sector collaboration of UCSF scientists and community health advocates by leading coalition building and consultation. At UCSF, Vargas has also led work to transform patient-care, research, education, and safety, as well to advance the institutions’ commitment to improving health for all.
Vargas served on the National Cancer Institute’s National Council of Research Advocates, the board of the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) of San Francisco; was the inaugural co-chair of the SF Sugary Drinks Distributor Tax Advisory Committee in San Francisco to guide recommendations to SF Mayors for how to invest Soda Tax revenue & is currently on the Board of Directors of the American Heart Association Bay Area & Instituto Familiar De La Raza.
Prior to his 20 years of service at UCSF, Vargas directed community-based nonprofit organizations and school-based health and social service programs. He has taught in middle, high school and university classrooms, and has done grassroots organizing to advance health, peace and opportunity primarily in low-income communities of San Francisco and the Bay Area.
At home, Vargas and his family help preserve Native traditions of indigenous peoples by way of ceremony, dance and song with Danza Xitlalli of San Francisco—the first Aztec Dance group founded in San Francisco in 1984.