Plenary Speakers

Keynote Speaker

Monica Webb Hooper PhD
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities

Cancer Education in the Age of COVID-19: Disparities, Pandemics, and Infodemics

Dr. Monica Webb Hooper is Deputy Director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). She works closely with the Director, Dr. Pérez-Stable, and the leadership, to oversee all aspects of the institute and to support the implementation of the science visioning recommendations to improve minority health, reduce health disparities, and promote health equity.

Dr. Webb Hooper is an internationally recognized translational behavioral scientist and clinical health psychologist. She has dedicated her career to the scientific study of minority health and racial/ethnic disparities, focusing on chronic illness prevention and health behavior change. Her program of community engaged research focuses on understanding multilevel factors and biopsychosocial mechanisms underlying modifiable risk factors, such as tobacco use and stress processes, and the development of community responsive and culturally specific interventions. Her goal is to contribute to the body of scientific knowledge and disseminate findings into communities with high need.

Before joining NIMHD, Dr. Webb Hooper was a Professor of Oncology, Family Medicine & Community Health and Psychological Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. She was also Associate Director for Cancer Disparities Research and Director of the Office of Cancer Disparities Research in the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. During her time as a professor, Dr. Webb Hooper was principal investigator of federal and foundation grants, totaling over $15 million. To date, she has published over 90 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.

Dr. Webb Hooper completed her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of South Florida, internship in medical psychology from the University of Florida Health Sciences Center, and her Bachelor of Science from the University of Miami.

Plenary Speaker

Samuel C. Harvey Lecturer
Ivan Silver MD
Centre for Addiction & Mental Health, University of Toronto

Learning Conversations – a window to a world of enhanced Cancer Education

Dr. Ivan Silver has enjoyed a career in medical education focusing on teaching innovation, continuing professional development (CPD) and faculty development. He was the inaugural Director of the Centre for Faculty Development in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto from 2002-2009, the Vice-Dean of CPD at the University of Toronto (2005-2011) and the inaugural Vice-President of Education at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), from 2012-2018. Dr. Silver is an award winning medical educator and a full Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. He also continues an active clinical practice in geriatric psychiatry at CAMH. He is continuing his education research and scholarship in the areas of feedback, professionalism, the imposter syndrome and continuing professional and faculty development. His perspective in medical education has been indelibly influenced by his experience as a patient with chronic medical illnesses including cancer.

Plenary Speaker

Alison Lin PhD
National Cancer Institute

Diversity in cancer training – transforming challenges into opportunities

Dr. Alison Lin is the Deputy Chief of the Diversity Training Branch of the National Cancer Institute’s Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities. She has served as a Program Director since 2012 and has developed and managed both intramural and extramural diversity-focused training programs. Prior to joining NCI, Dr. Lin served as an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA. She received her Ph.D. in physics/biophysics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Plenary Speaker

EACE Speaker
Charles Kelly
European Association for Cancer Education; Northern Centre for Cancer Care

Teaching and Learning in Cancer in a Time of COVID

I have been a Consultant Clinical Oncologist at the Northern Centre for Cancer Care, Newcastle upon Tyne for over 25 years with clinical interests in head and neck cancer and skin cancer and melanoma. In the UK, clinical oncologists give both radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and I still have active practices in both. I have an interest in medical education and initiated and until recently was Degree Programme Director for the Newcastle University Online Masters degrees in Oncology & Palliative Care, which have been running successfully for over 15 years now. My other main clinical interest is shared decision-making.

Plenary Speaker

Robin Vanderpool DrPH
National Cancer Institute

Using Cancer Communication to Address Social Determinants of Health

Robin C. Vanderpool, DrPH, is Chief of the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Divison of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, Rockville, MD, USA. As branch chief, Dr. Vanderpool leads the development of health communication research initiatives in areas such as patient-provider communication, cancer risk communication, health literacy, social/new media, and connected health. Prior to joining NCI, she was a Professor in the College of Public Health at the University of Kentucky (UK) and Associate Director for Community Outreach and Engagement at the NCI-designated UK Markey Cancer Center. She specializes in cancer communication research, rural cancer control, implementation science, and health equity.

Plenary Speaker

Chris Lathan MD, MS, MPH
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Cancer Disparities and Treatment Equity: Removing Barriers to Cancer Care in our Community

Dr. Lathan’s primary research interests are centered on the effects of race, class, and access to care in cancer outcomes, including racial disparities in lung cancer treatment, differences in somatic mutations across racial groups, access to precision medicine by race and social class, equitable distribution of new treatment across populations. Dr. Lathan aims to bridge the gap between research efforts in disparities and the realities of patient care by developing interventions to increase access to high level quality care, developed in part through a high level of community engagement. He is the founding Faculty Director of the Cancer Care Equity Program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a clinical outreach program that aids in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer for patients at Federally Qualified Health Centers and integrates three arms of clinical cancer care: prevention, diagnosis/treatment, and survivorship. He is also the Associate Director of the Dana-Farber Network focusing on clinical trials.

Plenary Speaker

Stephen Thomas PhD
University of Maryland School of Public Health, Maryland Center for Health Equity

The Colors of COVID-19: Confronting Health Disparities During a Global Pandemic

Dr. Stephen B. Thomas is a tenured Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the School of Public Health and Director of the Maryland Center for Health Equity (MCHE) at the University of Maryland in College Park. Prior to joining the faculty in 2010, he served as the Director of the Center for Minority Health in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh from 2000-2009. He is a highly experienced Principal Investigator, having served as PI of multiple five year NIH-NIMHD P60 grant titled “Excellence in Partnership through Community Outreach, Research on Health Disparities and Training (EXPORT)” (5P60 MD000207; 2002-2007), the Research Center of Excellence in Minority Health Disparities (7 P60 MD000207, 2007-2012), and with Dr. Quinn, was also the Joint PI of the Center of Excellence in Race, Ethnicity and Health Disparities Research (P20 MD006737, 2012-2017, NIMHD). He also served as PI (along with Dr. Quinn) on a prestigious Grand Opportunity (“GO”) grant sponsored by the Office of the Director, NIH, NIMHD, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) titled “Bioethics Research Infrastructure Initiative: Building Trust between Minorities and Researchers” (7RC2MD004766). Over the decades, he has developed a significant network of relationships and leadership roles across multiple health disparity influencing sectors including academic researchers; healthcare providers and service organizations; community leaders; national foundations, and local, state, and federal policymakers. He has specific expertise in the development, implementation and evaluation of community engaged minority health and health disparity interventions. He also has extensive experience in overcoming barriers associated with the legacy of the Syphilis Study Done at Tuskegee (1932 - 1972) and conducting scientifically sound and culturally tailored community-based interventions designed to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities to achieve health equity. He believes in team science and building trust with minority communities by first addressing their unmet health needs. Once trust is established, opportunities to conduct research can flourish. He serves on the Board of Directors for Doctors Community Hospital in Prince George’s County and founding member of the leadership team for the Totally Linking Care Coalition composed of five hospital systems. Nationally, he serves on the Institutional Review Board of the All of US research initiative, a major NIH longitudinal study seeking to enroll one million Americans. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Health Equity Research Initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Patient Panel Facilitator

Megan Battaglia
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center

How Patients' and Caregivers' Personal Identities and Backgrounds Affect Experiences with Cancer Care

Megan Doyle Battaglia has been a member of CPEN since 2002. She is the founder and manager of the Patient Education Department at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and in the last 18 years has overseen tremendous growth in staff, educational materials, videos, and programs. She has 28 years’ experience in the practical application of consumer health education, health literacy, and cancer patient education.

Megan believes the role of cancer patient educators is to provide the right education at the right time in the right format in order to help guide patients and caregivers through every step of their cancer journey.

Megan is a native of Buffalo, NY and is a proud new nana to her grandson Neville.