Dr. Yaw Nyame

Dr. Yaw Nyame

Aug 20, 2026

Assistant Professor and OCOE Program Lead, Department of Urology

Assistant Professor and OCOE Program Lead, Department of Urology

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, University of Washington

Dr. Nyame is a urologic oncologist with a research interest in health equity and quality in urologic cancer care delivery. His research practice focuses on using patient-centered approaches to build patient, community, and research collaborations to develop and sustain multi-level interventions and studies to eliminate health disparities in prostate cancer and other urologic malignancies. His research team uses this patient-centered foundation to engage in translational health services, molecular and clinical research in prostate cancer, with a focus in addressing inequities among Black and African-descent prostate cancer patients. His research also focuses on evaluating the efficacy and harms of early detection, with a focus in high-risk populations.

He attended medical school at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University and business school at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, graduating in 2012. Prior to medical school, he completed a master’s in health services and administration at the School of Public Health at the George Washington University. He completed his urology residency training at the Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute at the Cleveland Clinic and an SUO fellowship at the University of Washington, where joined the faculty upon the completion of his training.

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Folakemi T. Odedina, PhD, BPharm

Folakemi T. Odedina, PhD, BPharm

Aug 11, 2026

Deputy Director, Community Outreach & Engagement, Center for Health Equity and Community Engagement Research

Deputy Director, Community Outreach & Engagement, Center for Health Equity and Community Engagement Research

Mayo Clinic

Dr. Folakemi T. Odedina, PhD, BPharm, is an internationally renowned leader in cancer health disparities and community-engaged oncology research, serving as Professor of Hematology/Oncology and Enterprise Deputy Director of Global Oncology at the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center. At Mayo Clinic, she is an active member of the Clinical Trials Committee and leads the Community Engagement Clinical Trials Strategy, advancing innovative, inclusive approaches to cancer research.

Dr. Odedina also serves as Scientific Director of the Mayo Clinic Florida Community Health Collaborative and is the Principal Investigator and Founding Program Director of the NCI-supported Prostate Cancer Transatlantic Consortium (CaPTC). In addition, she is the Consortium Director and Contact MPI for the iCCaRE Consortium, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. A pioneering behavioral clinical trialist, she leads multiple large-scale, community-embedded clinical trials focused on prostate cancer survivorship and outcomes in underserved populations, with support from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense.

With more than 30 years of experience, Dr. Odedina began her career addressing chronic disease disparities in rural Appalachia, building sustainable, community-based health infrastructure to improve outcomes among rural West Virginian communities. This early work laid the foundation for her globally recognized research program, which is dedicated to reducing inequities in cancer burden through culturally responsive, cost-effective, and scalable interventions.

Dr. Odedina is widely recognized as a pioneer in precision public health and precision community health. She developed the innovative Community Living Lab (CoLLab) Learning Health Systems framework, enabling decentralized, community-based clinical trials in historically underserved and under-resourced populations. She has led more than 60 research projects using community-based participatory research (CBPR), mixed-methods, and translational behavioral science approaches, and has maintained continuous external funding since 1993.

Her transformative contributions to cancer equity have earned her numerous national and international honors, including the prestigious American Association for Cancer Research Distinguished Lectureship on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities (2023–2024). She also served as Co-Chair of the AACR Annual Meeting 2025 and is a Commissioner for The Lancet Oncology on Cancer Genomics-Precision Oncology.

A visionary scientist, mentor, and global health leader, Dr. Odedina continues to shape the future of oncology through her leadership in community-engaged research and her commitment to training the next generation of scientists. As Principal Investigator, she provides strategic scientific direction and administrative oversight, ensuring the successful execution of complex, multi-institutional research initiatives and the delivery of impactful outcomes in cancer prevention and control worldwide.

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Dr. J. Jacques Carter

Dr. J. Jacques Carter

Aug 3, 2026

Primary Care Physician

Primary Care Physician

Harvard Medical School

Dr. J. Jacques Carter currently serves as an attending physician at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and is an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. From 2005 to 2014, he also served as the Medical Director of the Prostate Cancer Screening and Education Program at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Dr. Carter serves as a medical advisor for PHEN and a member of its board of directors. 

Dr. Carter has been active in a number of civic and community organizations, including past board president of the Family Service of Greater Boston and past chair of the Brookline Advisory Council on Public Health. 

He has earned degrees from Howard University and George Washington University and received his medical degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Dr. Carter completed his residency training in Internal Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Then, Dr. Carter completed a graduate program at the Harvard School of Public Health where he received his Master of Public Health (MPH) degree. 

He then completed a clinical fellowship in primary care medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Since completing his training, Dr. Carter has held a number of clinical and administrative positions, including medical directorships of several local and national healthcare organizations. 

As a former director of one of the major clinical clerkships, he now serves as a teacher, advisor, and mentor for students at Harvard College, Harvard Medical School, and the School of Public Health. He regularly gives talks on medical and health-related topics to community groups and students throughout the Greater Boston area. He also lectures nationally and internationally on medical and public health topics. Dr. Carter serves as a medical consultant and resource for members of the print and electronic media.  

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Leslie Deane, MD, FACS, MS  

Leslie Deane, MD, FACS, MS  

Aug 20, 2025

Professor and Chief of the Division of Urology

Professor and Chief of the Division of Urology

Howard University Hospital

Dr. Leslie Deane is a minimally invasive robotic surgeon and endourologist at Howard University, where he is Professor and Chief of the Division of Urology and the R. Frank Jones Endowed Professor of Surgery. He is on staff as an attending urologist at Howard University Hospital.  

Prior to joining the faculty at Howard University, Dr. Deane was Professor of Urology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and an attending urologist at the University of Miami Health System, Jackson Memorial Hospital, and the Bruce W. Carter Miami Veterans Affairs Health System, the latter where he served as the Section Chief for Urology. After completing his fellowship,  

Dr. Deane spent 11 years in Chicago, Illinois, first as an Assistant Professor of Urology and Director of Laparoscopy, Endourology, and Robotic Urologic Surgery at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and then as an Associate Professor of Urology at Rush University Medical Center. 

Dr. Deane is a graduate of the University of the West Indies School of Clinical Medicine and Research at Cave Hill, where he received his medical degree in 1998, with honors in Anatomy and Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Deane was the recipient of the Merck, Sharpe, and Dohme Clinical Prize in Medicine.  

He went on to pursue training in Urological Surgery at the University of Toronto and its prestigious affiliated teaching hospitals, including Sunnybrook and Women’s College, the Toronto General Hospital, St. Michael’s Hospital, the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Princess Margaret Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital of Toronto, and the Toronto Western Hospital.  

He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He is Board Certified by the American Board of Urology and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Urology. He holds licensure in the District of Columbia, Florida, and California. 

Dr. Deane specializes in the minimally invasive management of urologic malignancies including cancers of the prostate, bladder, ureter, and kidney and has extensive experience in robotic surgery for these conditions. He also treats complex kidney stone disease and obstructions of the upper urinary tract requiring reconstruction. 

Dr. Deane also performs these complex robotic procedures in patients who are unwilling to accept blood and blood products for religious or other reasons. This means that with such meticulous attention to detail, the overall risk and rate of requiring a blood transfusion is exceedingly low. 

Over the past decade and a half, Dr. Deane pioneered approaches in minimally invasive urological surgery that avoid the use of narcotic/opioid-based medications for post-operative pain control.  

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Congressman Gregory Meeks

Congressman Gregory Meeks

Aug 16, 2023

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. House of Representatives

New York D-5

From public housing to the nation’s Capital, Gregory Weldon Meeks has lived a true American success story. Known for his compassionate and tenacious representation of his constituents, and his coalition-building skills, Meeks proudly serves the constituents of New York’s Fifth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives

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