Olga Solomon, PhD is a Research Scientist at the USC University center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.  She was trained as an applied linguist at UCLA (PhD 2001) with a specialization in developmental disabilities and ethnographic research methods. For the last decade and a half Olga has been focusing on health and healthcare disparities experienced by African American families with children and youth diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Between 2017 and 2019, she has been mentored by the late Dr. Loretta Jones in Community-Partnered Participatory Research model, and continues to be mentored by the CPPR practitioners while being an academic collaborator. Since 2018, Olga has been part of externally-funded CPPR research team let by the Healthy African American Families (Phase II) agency. Olga’s research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Association for Community Living (ACL), the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS), and private foundations.