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Marquita Lewis-Thames, Phd, MPH, MS (she/her/hers)

Assistant Professor
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Chicago, Illinois, United States

As National Institutes of Health-funded early career researcher, Dr. Lewis-Thames remains dedicated to engaging and working alongside rural community members to improve cancer care coordination. Her research investigates the individual- and community-level determinants associated with managing cancer disease outcomes to develop sustainable programming, informed by community and clinical partners, to increase access to local healthcare resources and move the needle on rural cancer outcomes. She has received in funding dedicated to rural cancer health research from national, institutional, and foundational funders. Through funding from the National Institutes of Aging and the American Cancer Society, Dr. Lewis-Thames is co-designing a telehealth navigation website for rural older cancer survivors: The Connect Study website. The Connect website was designed for rural older cancer survivors and aims to improve the usability of telehealth and connections to cancer-related distress supports (e.g., therapists, support groups). Concurrently, through funding from the Respiratory Health Association and the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Lewis-Thames is using a mixed methods approach to investigate the feasibility and acceptability of embedding Community Health Workers in a clinical survivorship care team model to help improve follow-up care visit adherence of rural lung cancer survivors.

Through research-community partnerships, Dr. Lewis-Thames cooperatively engages community members to identify and leverage existing community-based strengths and co-design interventions that aim to improve cancer care coordination. Dr. Lewis-Thames has successfully led multiple programs to strengthen rural community and urban academic partnerships leading to increased knowledge of and interest in building cancer research capacity.56 Her research is often guided by a rural-based Community Advisory Board that serves as a shining example of rural community-urban academic/cancer center partnerships.

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