Summer Mentorship: CHESS Program

Over the summer, our fellows participated in a mentorship experience through the Cancer Health Equity Summer Scholars Program at the UI Cancer Center. Fellows aided 2 high school scholars, Eleshiday Menigeste and Ronald Chen, through an orientation to UIC research and a research paper culminating in a final presentation. Postdoctoral fellow Dr. Andrew McLeod was a lead mentor for the CHESS summer experience. We are very proud of our fellows and these students!

Presentations:

Treatments of Childhood Cancer Linked to Immune Dysregulation and Chronic Inflammation in Survivors – A Pathway to Increased Chronic Disease Risk: A Review
Ronald Chen- Faculty Mentor:Lisa Tussing-Humphreys, PhD, RDN

Mediterranean Diet Adherence Effect on Cancer-Related Cognitive Impairment
Eleshaday Mengiste- Faculty Mentor: Marian Fitzgibbon, PhD

Summer Research Presentations

T32 alums and staff presented at the 16th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved – American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). We recognize them for their outstanding presentations:

1. Catherine M. Pichardo, NCI, Rockville, Maryland – Association of neighborhood gentrification with prostate cancer in African American and European American men.
2. Carola T. Sanchez-Diaz, Cancer Epidemiology and Health Outcomes, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey – The association of Covid-19 pandemic restrictions with patient-reported outcomes and lifestyle behaviors among breast cancer survivors: Evidence from a cohort of Black and Hispanic breast cancer survivors in New Jersey.

We congratulate recent alumni on progress in their careers:

• Postdoctoral fellow Natalicio Serrano has accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Behavior at UNC Gillings School of Public Health in Fall 2023.
• Predoctoral fellow Mirielle Nauman successfully defended her dissertation in December 2022 and accepted the Ben May Cancer Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Chicago.
• Postdoctoral fellow Patricia Wolf has accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutrition Science at Purdue University in Spring 2022.
• Predoctoral fellow Catherine Pichardo successfully defended her dissertation in December 2021 and accepted a Postdoctoral Fellow Cancer Research Training Award (CRTA) at the National Cancer Institute.
• After completing the program, postdoctoral fellow Shaila Strayhorn began a tenure-track position as an Assistant Professor in the School of Health and Applied Human Sciences at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.
• After successfully defending her dissertation in April 2021, Carola Sanchez-Diaz began a postdoctoral fellowship at Rutgers University.
• After successfully defending her dissertation in March 2021, Alpana Kaushiva accepted a position as Senior Research Scientist at ConcertAI in Chicago.
• Dr. Jennifer Sanchez-Flack completed our postdoctoral program in December 2020 and accepted a position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at UIC’s College of Medicine.
• Predoctoral fellow, Sabrina Young, successfully defended her dissertation entitled “The Role of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in Food Insecurity and Food Acquisitions” in May 2020, and accepted a position as a Research Agricultural Economist for the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
• CECDP predoctoral alumna Karla Castellanos successfully defended her dissertation entitled “Pancreatic Cancer Chemoprevention by Metformin in a High Fat Diet“ in August 2020 and began a postdoctoral fellowship in the Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology at UIC’s College of Medicine.