Biography

Dr. Cruz-Correa completed her BS in biology and her medical degree at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR). She completed a residency in internal medicine at the UPR and a fellowship in gastroenterology and hepatology at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where she also completed a doctorate degree in Clinical Investigation and Genetic Epidemiology. 

Dr. Cruz-Correa is the executive director of the UPR Comprehensive Cancer Center and leads the cancer center’s Gastrointestinal Oncology Research Program. She is a professor of medicine at the UPR, adjunct associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, and adjunct professor of surgical oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Dr. Cruz-Correa is the lead investigator of the Hispanic Alliance for Clinical & Translational Research, NIGMS funded research infrastructure and career development grant. Her multidisciplinary research program is aimed at understanding the etiology and genetics of gastrointestinal cancer. The program explores multiple agents to prevent, intercept, or treat cancer using early-phase clinical trials.

 She is the chief medical officer of Pan-American Center for Oncology Trials, a research organization for development and conducting clinical trials in oncology. Dr. Cruz-Correa is a physician-scientist with a strong focus in chemo-prevention, hereditary cancers, and health disparities. She has been continuously funded by the NIH for over 18 years, leads several institutional networks, and was the inaugural dean for research at the UPR medical sciences campus. 

Dr. Cruz-Correa is actively involved in several national professional organizations, including as a governing board member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR); she is also a past chair of the AACR Minorities in Cancer Research Council and Women in Cancer Research. 

A governing board member of the Puerto Rico Colorectal Cancer Coalition and past board member of the NCI National Cancer Advisory Board and the American Gastroenterology Association, she is also editor of several prestigious medical journals including Gastroenterology and AACR Cancer Prevention Research. Dr. Cruz-Correa has over 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles and has mentored more than 50 graduate students as a thesis/research advisor.