Nita K. Lee, MD, MPH, is the Associate Director for Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) for the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center (UCCCC), effective November 1, 2023. Since 2010, the role was held by Karen Kim, MD, Professor of Medicine, who left the University of Chicago in August 2023. We are grateful for Dr. Kim’s extraordinary and dedicated leadership of COE at the Cancer Center for more than 13 years.

Dr. Lee is an Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Section of Gynecologic Oncology. She specializes in the diagnosis, surgery, chemotherapy, and survivorship care for patients with gynecologic malignancies. In addition to her clinical practice, she focuses on patient-centered research in cancer survivorship and disparities, such as lifestyle changes, patient navigation, and psychosocial needs of gynecologic cancer survivors. She has a long history of collaboration with community organizations and survivors in their advocacy and education efforts.  She is a member of the UCCCC Cancer Prevention and Control Program and Faculty Director of the OCECHE, the UCCCC Office of Community Engagement and Cancer Health Equity, which focuses on community education, collaborations for linkages to care, and promoting community-academic collaborations for research.

Physician portrait of Dr. Nita Lee, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology taken on December 15, 2015. (Photo by David Christopher)

In her role as the new AD for Community Outreach and Engagement, she will oversee all COE activities across the Center and oversee OCECHE. COE is a key component for the mission of our Cancer Center in addressing disparities and working towards health equity in our catchment area and beyond. COE remains an important component of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) and is critical to our continued NCI designation.

Dr. Lee will partner closely with other Associate Directors, particularly the AD for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (currently Iris Romero, MD, MS, until a replacement is named) and the AD for Cancer Research Training, Education and Coordination (Samuel Armato, PhD). She will also partner with the ADs for Basic, Translational, Clinical and Population Sciences (Geoffrey Greene, PhD; Jing Chen, PhD; Russell Szmulewitz, MD; Jasmin Tiro, PhD, MPH) to influence the research strategies that focus on key UCCCC priorities that are responsive to community cancer burden and needs. She will work closely with the UCCCC Clinical Trials Support Office (CTSO), under the direction of Lauren Wall, to increase enrollment of underrepresented populations to cancer clinical trials.

The AD for Community Outreach and Engagement is a member of the Cancer Center’s senior leadership team and will be a critical member of the Executive Committee. I am grateful for all of Dr. Lee’s past work in this area and appreciate her continuing commitment to the UCCCC. We will rely on her expertise to improve our outreach and engagement with the diverse communities of the UCCCC catchment area.