Mariana Carla Stern – Candidate for the Nominating Committee of AACR

The voting for the 2025 AACR Annual Election is now open, where members will vote for the next President-Elect, Treasurer, five Board Members, and four members of the Nominating Committee.

This year, Mariana Carla Stern, PhD is a candidate for the Nominating Committee of AACR.

Dr. Mariana Carla Stern is the Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and a Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences, as well as Preventative Medicine and Urology, at the Keck School of Medicine of USC in Los Angeles, California.

She also holds the Ira Goodman Chair in Cancer Research and serves as the Associate Director of Population Science at the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, Keck Medical Center of USC.

Dr. Stern’s previous positions include Associate Professor in Urology (2016-2017) and Associate Professor (2010-2017) and Assistant Professor (2001-2010) in Preventative Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Dr. Mariana Carla Stern’s research interests focus on cancer epidemiology and the identification of key cancer determinants.

Her work spans translational research aimed at bridging scientific discoveries to clinical applications, with a particular emphasis on cancer disparities.

She explores various aspects of cancer, including colorectal and prostate cancer, as well as the role of dietary sources of carcinogenic exposures in cancer development.

Dr. Stern is also deeply involved in studying cancer genetics, cancer patterns, tumor characteristics, and clinical outcomes, particularly within diverse populations, to better understand and address health inequities in cancer care.

Dr. Mariana Carla Stern has been actively involved in leadership and service roles with the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

She will serve as Chair of the AACR Cancer Disparities Progress Report Steering Committee in 2026, after co-chairing it in 2022. Her involvement with AACR also includes being a member of the Special Conferences Committee (2024-2027), the Cancer Prevention Working Group Steering Committee (2021-2024), and the June L. Biedler Prize for Cancer Journalism Judging Panel (2020-2023).

She has previously held key roles such as Vice Chair of the Annual Meeting Program Committee (2021-2022), co-chair of the Annual Meeting Education Committee (2021-2022), and Chair of the AACR Cancer Disparities Research Grants Review Committee (2019-2020).

Dr. Stern also chaired the AACR Cancer Disparities Distinguished Lectureship Committee and co-chaired the 12th AACR Conference on Cancer Health Disparities in 2019.

Additionally, she has been involved in several scientific review committees, including for Basic Cancer Research Grants (2018-2020) and the AACR Cancer Disparities Progress Report (2019-2020).

Education

Dr. Mariana Carla Stern earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Buenos Aires, School of Science, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1992. She then completed her PhD in Cancer Biology at the University of Texas, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences/MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, in 1997.

Following her doctoral studies, Dr. Stern pursued postdoctoral training in molecular epidemiology at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIH) in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, from 1997 to 2001, where she worked in both the Epidemiology Branch and the Molecular Carcinogenesis Laboratory.

Awards and Honors

– Invited participant, President’s Cancer Panel, NIH (2024)
– Member, External Advisory Board, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center (2023-2024)
– Keynote speaker, “Disparities in prostate and colorectal cancer among Latinos,” Rhode Island IDEaA Symposium, 2022 Emerging Areas of Science, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University (2022)
– Member, NCI Cancer Epidemiology of Hispanic Populations Meeting Steering Committee (2020)
– Member, External Advisory Board, Brown University Cancer Center (2020)
– Director, Molecular Epidemiology and Applied Biostatistics, Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine of USC (2020-present)

To vote for your chosen candidate, click here.