Camille Sullivan

Graduate Student of the Year

Camille Sullivan is a sixth-year MD/PhD student at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine (UCCOM) who recently completed her doctoral work in the Cancer and Cell Biology Graduate Program. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology from Massachusetts Instituteof Technology and accrued an extensive background in cancer research during herundergraduate years including a CURE fellowship at the City of Hope Comprehensive CanceR Center and an externship at the National Cancer Institute. Her dissertation research in the laboratory of Dr. Susan Waltz focused on the mechanistic roles of the RON receptor tyrosine kinase in the prostate tumor microenvironment. Her published studies revealed a novel feedforward regulatory loop by which RON receptor expression in prostate tumor cells directs macrophages to promote prostate cancer. These seminal findings show that the RON receptor is a novel immunotherapeutic target in prostate tumor cells that can be exploited to enhance the antitumor immune response and effectively treat patients with advanced disease. She was awarded the highly competitive NIH F31-Diversity Predoctoral Fellowship from the NationalCancer Institute to support her thesis research, and she was named one of 40 fellows from across the United States selected to be in the 2019 cohort of the Yale Ciencia Academy for Career Development. In addition to her academic achievements, she has shown a strong commitment to leadership and outreach. She has coordinated seminars with STEM undergraduates at UC and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center with the goal of empowering students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue the MD/PhD career. She served for three years on the UC Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) Admissions Committee and was a fierce advocate for outreach and recruitment of applicants from diverse backgrounds. She continues to advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the UCCOM community as a member of the UCCOM Diversity Advisory Council, and as the first MSTP Diversity and Inclusion Officer, she is driving changes to promote representation and authentic allyship in the MSTP faculty and student body. As a future surgeon-scientist, she is committed to being a leader and advocate for diversity in medicine and academia.