May 13 2025
NRG Oncology’s (NRG) National Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) provides mentorship and training for new/early career investigators. In the last four years, nine Health Care Access fellowships have been awarded, and we are approaching our fifth year of selecting fellows for the next award period in 2026. The program trains selected early-stage investigators in the NRG system by means of a structured mentorship experience. Each fellow is paired with a mentor to provide training as well as development of their research proposal. Importantly, the overarching goal is to recruit researchers with a passion for improving health care access and accelerate pilot ideas as NRG concepts. Our vision is to have at least one scholar for every disease site we study. In addition to the generous funds donated by the West Valley Ovarian Cancer Advocacy (WVOCA), the fellowships have been funded by donations from Gilead, Genmab, the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), as well as NRG’s legacy foundations the GOG Foundation, the NSABP Foundation, and the RTOG Foundation.
In celebration of four years of awardees, we wanted to hone in on some of the several accomplishments our fellows have been making in the field.Stephanie Rieder is in the process of submitting her trial for improving equity in genetic testing. Myriad Genetics is sponsoring a 1,000 patient trial for My Risk testing for all solid tumors and comparing to following guidelines as standard of care. Dr. Rieder and NRG will then work to change guidelines. She is sponsored by WVOCA. Sharishka Harrington is working with our endometrial cancer prevention team to prove that we should be screening for endometrial cancer in obese women. All women 55 years old with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 and above will get an endometrial biopsy and a Mirena IUD if they consent to our trial. Olivia Lara is working on an ovarian cancer prevention protocol where women who have prophylactic salpingectomy or bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy and are found to have a serous tubal intraepithelial carcinoma (STIC) lesion are enrolled in a protocol that standardizes the surgical treatment and staging biopsies. The post-operative treatment will be patient- and physician-choice between multiple choices, if they truly only have a STIC. There will have to be a 3-5-person pathology review committee to grade these lesions as low or high risk. The choices of treatment are observation, carboplatin, standard of care ovarian cancer treatment, SHET1, PARP inhibitor. Deborah Marshall is working to improve sexual function after cancer treatment. She has chosen as her first trial to compare similar patients with cervical cancer who can be treated with either radical hysterectomy or chemotherapy and radiation. Our hypothesis is that patients receiving hysterectomy first have better sexual function, even if they get post-operative radiation.
NRG would like to reflect on our fellows’ experiences at their various timepoints in the program from their own words. Below NRG collected a series of quotes from our fellows:
“Through my experience as an NRG health equity fellow, I had opportunities to listen, participate, and lead in many varying NRG committees under supportive mentorship. This allowed me to strengthen not only my own research concepts, but also to improve my impact as a team member. I have used these lessons to bring my expertise as a Health Equity/Access Chair on NRG protocols nationally but also promote my clinical research concepts and expertise to my patients and health systems locally.” - Tara Castellano, MD (2022 Fellow)
“West Valley Ovarian Cancer Association (WVOCA) has been an invaluable supporter of my research efforts through NRG. As a junior faculty member in gynecologic oncology, I am passionate about establishing myself as a leader and advocate within the field for addressing disparities in access to care and outcomes in ovarian and other gynecologic cancers. Through the outstanding mentorship provided by the NRG Oncology Health Care Access Fellowship and the funding provided through WVOCA, my mentor, Joan Walker, and I have made substantial progress on a proposal to demonstrate the impact of universal genetic testing in solid tumor malignancies in improving detection rates of hereditary cancer syndromes and thus enhancing screening and prevention for many inherited malignancies. In partnership with Myriad Genetics, we intend to carry out this important project at NCORP sites around the United States, with the goal of promoting changes in genetic testing guidelines nationally.” - Stephanie Rieder, MD, PhD (2024 Fellow)
“The NRG Health Care Access Fellowship will provide invaluable support in advancing my research by enabling me to explore approaches to improving healthcare access through innovative clinical trial protocol development. With this fellowship, I hope to delve deeper into understanding and addressing the disparities that hinder equitable care. The opportunity to collaborate with experts and access resources through this program will be instrumental in shaping impactful solutions for populations without equal access to care.” - Olivia D. Lara, MD, MS (2025 Fellow)
“The program has provided me the rare opportunity to serve as the Equity Chair of a cooperative group study which is an uncommon role for an early-stage investigator. This leadership position has allowed me to see firsthand the complex challenges of ensuring diverse representation and inclusion in clinical trials. It has deepened my understanding of the structural barriers to equitable trial access while equipping me with a collaborative network to address them meaningfully.” - Oluwadamilola Oladeru, MD (2022 Fellow)
Being an NRG fellow has been a life changing experience. I had the opportunity to serve as the Health Care Access Chair for NRG-GY035 helping write the protocol to ensure the study participants are representative of the patient population. I also recently had my NRG Oncology Ancillary Project "ENHANCE Clinical Trial Outcomes - Evaluating Nuances in Hispanic And Non-hispanic Cervix/Endometrial Clinical Trial Outcomes" approved and will be working with Statistical and Data Mangement to develop this project with the goal of producing an abstract for national presentation and ultimately a manuscript. I am now also a voting member of the NRG Oncology Uterine Corpus Subcommittee and NRG Oncology Radiation Oncology Committee. I have also had the opportunity to obtain a certificate in Biostatistics from the Harvard Catalyst Program and in Health Equity Data and Delivery Science from the Massachusetts General Hospital Mongan Institute. I am incredibly excited to continue being part of the NRG Health Access Fellowship and look forward to the ongoing opportunities that have been possible through this amazing program. - Idalid Franco, MD (2023 Fellow)
The NRG Health Care Access Fellowship program has been a wonderful experience, and I am grateful for the support and opportunity to pursue my research interests within NRG Oncology. The Fellowship has allowed me to integrate more extensively within the NRG GU Committee (as a GU radiation oncologist) as well as connect with leaders throughout NRG as I pursue my interest in understanding the patient representation among NRG biospecimen collection. It has given me many opportunities to discuss and present my findings in different forums and has led to many collaborations both within and outside NRG. -Sophie Kamran, MD (2023 Fellow)