Caryn Lerman, PhD, was elected by her peers to serve on the board of directors of the Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI) for a three-year term that will begin during the 2019 AACI/CCAF Annual Meeting, Oct. 20-22, in Washington, D.C. Also elected were Carlos L. Arteaga, MD, director of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, and S. Gail Eckhardt, MD, inaugural director of the LIVESTRONG Cancer Institutes at The University of Texas at Austin.

Lerman was appointed director of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in March 2019 after serving as deputy director at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania. An elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, she is internationally recognized for her cancer prevention research that bridges the fields of genomics, pharmacology and population science.

Arteaga, Eckhardt, and Lerman will replace outgoing AACI board members Dario C. Altieri, MD, president and chief executive officer of the Wistar Institute; Benjamin G. Neel, MD, PhD, director of the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center, NYU Langone; and Eduardo Sotomayor, MD, director of GW Cancer Center at George Washington University.

AACI comprises 98 premier academic and freestanding cancer research centers in the U.S. and Canada. AACI is dedicated to reducing the burden of cancer by enhancing the impact of the leading academic cancer centers. AACI’s Board of Directors consists of directors of North America’s leading cancer centers, who provide expert guidance to the association.