Community & Health Equity

Hope Leaders

The Hope Leaders program, run through the University of Illinois Cancer Center Community Engagement and Health Equity Office, connects community organizations with cancer researchers to ensure community health needs help shape scientific projects.

Through this two-way partnership, community voices inform research and researchers engage directly with the populations their work aims to benefit. This collaboration empowers community organizations to share community health needs directly with Cancer Center researchers in the Cancer Biology and Translational Oncology research programs; they work together on research; and then share their work at community events.

The Cancer Center provides funds to support these two-year collaborations. Each community partner receives a $20,000 grant ($10,000 in the first year and $10,000 in the second year, contingent upon study progress), and each cancer researcher receives $30,000 ($20,000 in the first year and $10,000 in the second year, contingent upon study progress).

---

2025 Hope Leaders

• Salvation Army Adele and Robert Stern Red Shield Center, located in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, is partnered with Natalia Nieto, PharmD, PhD, Professor of Pathology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC, and Trainee Sai Santosh Babu Komakula, PhD, in the Nieto lab.
• Cancer Support Team of Illinois, founded by cancer survivor and patient advocate Karen Hall, is paired with John Nitiss, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology and the Assistant Dean for Research in the Retzky College of Pharmacy at UIC on the Rockford campus, and Trainee Maureen McCoy, a PharmD/PhD Candidate, in the Nitiss lab.

2024 Hope Leaders

• Ameen Salahudeen, MD, PhD, is paired with community partner Peer Plus Education and Training Advocates.
• The lab of Cancer Center member Constance Jeffery, PhD, is partnered with the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council.

2023 Hope Leaders

• Equal Hope was paired with the lab of Cancer Center member Ekrem Emrah Er, PhD, and the group shared their work at a Health and Beauty for Women Brunch and Learn. The presentation was in English and Spanish.
• Advocates for Community Wellness was paired with the lab Cancer Center member Jun Sun, PhD, and they presented their work at a Community Wellness Workshop focused on Vitamin D deficiency and breast cancer risk in African Americans.

For more information about the Hope Leaders Program, please email: hopeleaders@uic.edu