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.