Ernest Hawk, MD, MPH

Ernest Hawk, MD, MPH, is vice president and division head for Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and holds the T. Boone Pickens Distinguished Chair for Early Prevention of Cancer. Additional responsibilities include leadership of the Duncan Family Institute for Cancer Prevention and Risk Assessment, and co-leadership of MD Anderson’s Cancer Prevention and Control Platform which advances community health promotion and cancer control through evidence-based public policy, public and professional education, and community-based service implementation and dissemination.

A native of Detroit, MI, Dr. Hawk earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees at Wayne State University and his master of public health degree at Johns Hopkins University. He completed an internal medicine internship and residency at Emory University, a medical oncology clinical fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco and a cancer prevention fellowship at the National Cancer Institute (NCI).Prior to his appointment at MD Anderson in December 2007, Dr. Hawk held several positions at the NCI in Bethesda, MD. He most recently served as director of the Office of Centers, Training and Resources, responsible for the NCI’s cancer centers program, a major translational science program (i.e., the SPORE program), the NCI’s extramural training enterprise, and its extramural disparities portfolio. His prior NCI posts included Chief and medical officer in the Gastrointestinal and Other Cancers Research Group, medical officer in the Chemoprevention Branch, and chair of the Translational Research Working Group.

Dr. Hawk has been involved in a wide range of preclinical and clinical chemoprevention research, including developmental studies of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, COX-2 inhibitors, and preventive agent combinations in high-risk cohorts. He earned numerous awards for his work, including the NCI Research Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cancer Prevention and the Distinguished Alumnus Award and is the 2015 recipient of the American Society of Clinical Oncology-American Cancer Society Award and Lecture for Contributions to Cancer Prevention and Management. Most recently, his interests have broadened to include improvement of minority and underserved populations’ participation in clinical research, and the integration of risk assessment, behavioral science, and preventive strategies developed through sequential clinical trials for application in clinical or public health settings. He has published more than 175 scientific articles and book chapters, edited three books, and serves as the senior deputy editor for Cancer Prevention Research, and on the editorial board of Cancer Medicine.