Valerie Ruelas is the Director of the Community Diabetes Initiatives of the University of Southern California and Childrens Hospital Los Angeles managing the program‚s research grants and projects. Ms. Ruelas has received a grant from the California Community Foundation and worked with the South Los Angeles community to establish a farmers market in Watts and developed a promotora program to assist in the Hubert Humphrey Health Center‚s diabetes program ˆ a sister clinic of the Roybal Health Center. She also received grants from the USDA - Network for a Healthy California and RoseHills Foundation to conduct community nutrition education and healthy cooking classes at the East Los Angeles Farmers‚ Market. She is the Principal Investigator on a project to evaluate the East and South Los Angeles Farmers‚ Markets and Co-Investigator on a random digit dial community evaluation to assess the demographics, food and physical activity behaviors of individuals living in East and South Los Angeles. Other projects include: Look AHEAD: Action for Health in Diabetes - to study the impact of lifestyle modification on CVD outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes; the Keck Diabetes Prevention Initiative, utilizing a community participatory approach to develop and implement strategies for community-based prevention of diabetes and obesity among low-income Latino residents in East Los Angeles; and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation grant to develop and implement a method for continuous glucose monitoring in an existing diabetes disease management program for low-income Latino patients in East Los Angeles.