Elizabeth Shenkman, PhD is the Chair of the Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics and also is the Co-Director of the University of Florida Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and the Associate Director for Community Outreach and Engagement for the UF Health Cancer Center. Dr. Shenkman is a health outcomes researcher with a research focus on: 1) determining which combinations of health care delivery, community, and patient factors influence quality and outcomes of care; and 2) developing and testing corresponding evidence-based strategies to reduce disparities in health outcomes among underserved populations.

In her role as CTSI Co-Director and Co-Principle Investigator, Dr. Shenkman leads the Learning Health System initiative, including interfacing with clinicians, health system leaders, researchers, and patients to align research and clinical operations to systematically improve health outcomes and advance health equity using real world data combined with implementation and improvement science methodologies. In addition, Dr. Shenkman leads the OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium, which was developed through the CTSI.

The Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute-funded OneFlorida Clinical Research Network is comprised of 10 different health system partners caring for over 15 M Floridians or approximately 60% of the population in the 3rd largest state in the US. The Floridians in this network include vulnerable populations who are rarely or minimally included in traditional clinical trials (e.g., those of lower socioeconomic status, racial and ethnic minorities, children, and older adults). A hallmark of OneFlorida is its centralized Data Trust, which contains linked health care claims, electronic health record, tumor registry, vital statistics, and census data from its health system partners for cohort discovery, study feasibility determination, and to augment primary data collection activities. Dr. Shenkman facilitates investigators’ access to OneFlorida clinical settings and the Data Trust for a wide range of studies including cancer-focused interventional trials.

Dr. Shenkman is an MPI for the NIH Office of the Director-funded All of Us Precision Medicine cohort initiative in collaboration with the University of Miami, Emory University and Morehouse School of Medicine. In that capacity, she is responsible for overseeing community engagement and recruitment and retention efforts focused on rural and underserved populations in North Florida. Dr. Shenkman also is the PI of an R01 funded by the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality examining the effects of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals with chronic conditions. The project uses electronic health record data to better measure health care use and clinical outcomes for adults with T2 diabetes and/or hypertension and who have intersecting identities (e.g., women who are black and residing in rural areas).

Dr. Shenkman’s research is funded by PCORI, the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, NIH, and the National Cancer Institute. Her work is published in such journals as Pediatrics, Health Services Research, Clinical Epidemiology, Pediatric Blood and Cancer, and the American Journal of Public Health. Dr. Shenkman is an elected member of the Society for Pediatric Research and the American Pediatric Society.

Dr. Sarah M. Szurek is a medical anthropologist who holds a faculty position as an assistant research scientist in the College of Medicine’s Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics. She also serves as program director for the Office of Community Outreach and Engagement at the UF Health Cancer Center.

Dr. Szurek’s work focuses on understanding the social and cultural factors that influence health outcomes among marginalized populations to then develop targeted, evidence-based programs to positively affect health in community settings. She has worked with Mexican immigrants in Alabama to examine how personal social networks affect diabetes risk, and with African Americans in Florida on community-based participatory research projects related to racism, cardiovascular disease, and the local food environment. Dr. Szurek previously directed the Florida Healthy Kids Program evaluation, which examined the quality of care that children receive in the state.

She currently is responsible for developing and managing community-based programs that identify cancer-relevant needs, target cancer prevention, and improve health outcomes in twenty-three counties in Florida. Dr. Szurek is a voting member of the Scientific Review and Monitoring Committee within the UF Health Cancer Center’s Clinical Research Office. She also serves on the Steering Committees for the North Central Florida Cancer Control Collaborative and the ABOUT Network – Project COGENT (Customizing Consumer GENerated Tools to Engage Researchers).

Jodian Blake, MPH, CTTS, is a Community Health Resource Coordinator for the Office of Community Outreach, Engagement and Equity at the UF Health Cancer Center. In COEE she is responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with key stakeholders in the UFHCC catchment area to identify the cancer-relevant needs of the community. She partners with UFHCC researchers and cancer focused organizations on identifying appropriate research studies, resources and programs for community members, those diagnosed with cancer, their family members, and other cancer caregivers. In addition to these activities, she is also the leader of key community education initiatives within the COEE office, most notably the monthly Cancer Connections lecture series. Jodian has been a Certified Tobacco Treatment Specialist for over seven years facilitating group tobacco cessation counseling sessions using motivational interviewing techniques and evidence-based tobacco cessation interventions. Most recently she served as the Tobacco and Health Program Manager at Suwannee River AHEC overseeing the Tobacco Free Florida AHEC Cessation Programs for 12 North Central Florida counties.

LaTrina Massey, MPH, is a Community Health Resource Coordinator at the University of Florida Health Cancer Center and is located in Tallahassee at the Bond Community Health Center (a Federally Qualified Health Center). She got her BA and MPH at FAMU (an HBCU), and was a Community Health Worker in Tallahassee, which means she has a broad preexisting network in the health sector (clinics, Tallahassee Memorial Hospital) as well as among many grassroots organizations. Massey has experience with clinical trials after her work with the United States Army at Ft. Benning, GA. She has worked alongside research professionals, military leadership, stakeholders, policy makers, and community members. As a community health worker, she spent much of her time providing health education, care coordination and navigation, and addressing social determinants of health to close health gaps. Given this experience, LaTrina is responsible for many key activities related to integrating COEE metrics into the interventional cancer clinical trials that are reviewed by the Scientific Monitoring Review Board (SRMC), and the Disease Site Groups (DSGs) at the UFHCC.