“All Roads Lead from Little Haiti: Lessons Learned from the Road Less Traveled” is the title of the presentation from Erin Kobetz, PhD, MPH, at the May 30 Director’s Seminar Series sponsored by the University of Illinois Cancer Center. The event will be held from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in room 4175 in the College of Medicine Research Building, 909 S. Wolcott Ave. All UI Cancer Center members are encouraged to attend.
A tenured professor in the departments of medicine, public health sciences, and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Kobetz also serves as associate director of Population Science and Cancer Disparities at UM’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center (SCCC), as well as chief of population health and cancer disparities for UHealth Oncology service line. She is also program director for the Community Engagement and Multidisciplinary Team Science Components of UM’s Clinical Translational Science Institute (CTSA) and is director of SCCC’s Cancer Control Program.
Kobetz joined the University of Miami in September 2004 following her completion of her PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Public Health. During her tenure at UM, she has established Patne en Aksyon (Partners in Action), Sylvester’s first-ever campus community partnership in Little Haiti, the largest enclave of Haitian settlement, and remains committed to integrating diverse stakeholders into the translational research continuum. She currently serves as the principal investigator of multiple grants from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparity (NIHMD) to support collaborative science with numerous South Florida communities. They have collectively garnered more than $30 million in extramural funding and serves as the university’s model for stakeholder engagement.
Kobetz has also partnered with South Florida Firefighters – similarly characterized by excess cancer risk – and leads the Firefighter Cancer Initiative (FCI), a university-wide interdisciplinary strategy to address disparity from “bench” to “bedside” to “community.” The efforts have been locally and nationally recognized and serve as an important approach to develop new community-based models for cancer prevention and achieve sustainable health and social change in underserved communities.
A reception will be held following Kobetz’s presentation.