Worta McCaskill-Stevens, M.D., M.S.

Dr. Worta McCaskill-Stevens is a medical oncologist and Chief of the Community Oncology and Prevention Trials Research Group, which houses the NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP), a community-based clinical trials network launched in 2014. As NCORP Director, she oversees the program supporting community hospitals, physicians and others to participate in NCI-approved cancer treatment, prevention, screening, and control clinical trials, as well as cancer care delivery studies. After arriving at the NCI in 1998, she became the program director for the Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (STAR), and assumed responsibilities for breast cancer prevention with the CCOP. She chaired the 2009 NIH State-of-the Science Conference on ductal carcinoma in situ; is a member of the Early Breast Cancer Clinical Trialist Group (Oxford, UK); and is a member of NCI’s Breast Cancer Steering Committee.

After attending Washington University and the American College of Switzerland, she completed medical school and an internal medicine residency at Georgetown University followed by a medical oncology fellowship at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN). Prior to her current position, she was the Co-Director of the Breast Care and Research Center at the Indiana University Cancer Center. In 2016, she was the recipient of the American Association for Cancer Research Jane Cooke Wright Memorial Lectureship, which recognizes an outstanding scientist who has made meritorious contributions to the field of cancer research and who has, through leadership or by example, furthered the advancement of minority investigators in cancer research. Her other honors and awards include: the Kaiser Family Fund Award for Excellence in Academic Achievement and Leadership in Medicine; Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society; the NIH Director’s Award for Clinical Trials; the NCI Merit Award for breast cancer prevention; and listed on Ebony magazine’s 2013 Power 100 – Most Influential African Americans in Science and Health. Prior to medical school, Dr. McCaskill-Stevens was a medical editor for Marcel Dekker and the Alan Guttamcher Institute.

Research Interests

• Cancer disparities research both nationally and internationally
• Management of comorbidities within clinical trials
• Molecular research that helps to identify those individuals who will best benefit from cancer prevention interventions