Dr. Marvella Elizabeth Ford | Graph Partitioning | Best Researcher Award

Marvella Elizabeth Ford, Ph.D., serves as the Associate Director of Community Outreach and Engagement at the Hollings Cancer Center (HCC) and is an integral member of the HCC Cancer Prevention and Control Program, where she leads initiatives that strengthen trust and collaboration between the center and South Carolina communities through research and service-based activities. A behavioral scientist deeply committed to cancer health equity, her work focuses on improving the recruitment and retention of diverse populations in cancer research and advancing intervention design and implementation. She contributes nationally as a co-investigator of the NIH-funded Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial and has spearheaded multiple ancillary studies supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute. As a multiple principal investigator (MPI) of the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center NCORP MU community site, she collaborates with clinical oncology partners across South Carolina to enhance the participation of rural populations in clinical trials and expand cancer population health research. Dr. Ford has co-led a National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)-funded randomized trial that significantly increased lung cancer surgery rates among Black patients through protocol-driven patient navigation, and she currently serves as MPI of a multi-state, multi-institutional Stand Up To Cancer grant evaluating a multilevel intervention to promote lung cancer screening and build a shared population-based cohort and biorepository to address biologic determinants and risk factors among Black communities across Virginia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Additionally, she previously led an NIH/NCI-funded U54 Center to examine biologic pathways and lifestyle behaviors associated with diverse cancer sub-types while building a statewide network of trained cancer researchers to drive improved cancer outcomes in South Carolina and across the nation.