Meet Our Team

Nita Karnik Lee, MD, MPH, is the Associate Director for Community Outreach and Engagement at the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center. In her role, she oversees all community outreach and engagement activities across the Cancer Center as well as 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. 

Marcia Tan, PhD, MPH, assistant professor of public health sciences, is a health psychologist and epidemiologist who focuses on reducing health disparities among underserved populations through health behavior change. Her research interests are 1) examining biopsychosocial and behavioral factors that contribute to disparities in chronic disease, primarily cancer, and 2) conducting community-based health behavior interventions to reduce risk factors among disparity populations. A majority of her work has focused on tobacco cessation and weight management among low-income and racial/ethnic minority populations.

Dario Villamar, MD, is the Assistant Director for Clinical Network Community Outreach and LUCERO Clinical Director. He is a medical oncologist and hematologist with an interest in cancer health equity and making high quality cancer care more broadly accessible to underserved populations in the community. His research and outreach efforts have focused on how best to minimize disparities in care for Hispanic and Latino patients and how to leverage community-based organizations to increase education, awareness and cancer services to vulnerable populations.

Gina Curry, MPH, MBA, has almost 20 years of serving as a community research liaison for federally funded research projects for academic institutions. Her expertise is community engagement and community-engaged research. Merging her lived experience and academic training, she has developed a network of over 100 community, faith, and patient advocacy organizations interested in research and clinical trials. Curry is especially proficient in building academic research capacity among the lay community and brokering equitable research partnerships between community and academia.

Alia Poulos, MA, MPP, has 14 years of experience in education, ranging from K-12 public and private schools, to medical education, and community health education. She holds a Master of Arts in Teaching from Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Public Policy from Loyola University Chicago. On the OCECHE team, she is responsible for online cancer education and cancer-focused public policy initiatives.

Erika Rodriguez, BA, is the Latino Outreach Specialist at the Office of Community Engagement and Cancer Health Equity. She facilitates cancer health education with a focus on clinical trials, the HPV vaccine, breast, lung, cervical, prostate, and colorectal cancer. She also assists in leading our Latino Cancer Task Force, LUCERO. Erika is an experienced patient navigator and community health worker with a passion for serving the communities in our catchment area.