Lumati Awarded Career Development Award from ASCO’s Conquer Cancer Foundation

June 2026

Juliet Lumati, MD, MPH, adjunct assistant professor of Surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and member of the Center for Global Oncology — a joint center between the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University and the Robert J. Havey, MD Institute for Global Health — has been selected to receive a 2026 Johnson & Johnson Health Equity Career Development Award from the Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). This award supports oncology professionals at every career stage to help accelerate breakthroughs in research.  

The Career Development Award is a three-year grant totaling $200,000 that funds clinical investigators in the first to fourth year of faculty appointment to establish an independent clinical cancer research program. Lumati was one of only 19 clinicians recognized with this distinction at the 2026 ASCO Annual Meeting, held May 29 to June 2 in Chicago.  

Juliet Lumati, MD, MPH, received the 2026 Johnson & Johnson Health Equity Career Development Award from the Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

The award will support her study, Evaluating the Impact of Financial Navigation on Financial Toxicity and Treatment Adherence for Cancer Care: A Randomized Control Trial — COST-FIN (NCT06630962), a clinical trial aimed at assessing the role of financial navigation in reducing financial distress for cancer patients in Nigeria — the first pragmatic randomized controlled trial on financial navigation in Sub-Saharan Africa. With the support of the Career Development Award, the Havey Institute of Global Health Research Catalyzer Grant and the Lurie Cancer Center Translational Grant, principal investigator Lumati and her team of more than 30 members — including Lisa Hirschhorn, MD, MPH, director of the Ryan Family Center for Global Primary Care at the Havey Institute for Global Health — study the link between finances and cancer care. The team’s goal is simple: reduce the high rate of treatment abandonment due to financial hardship in Sub-Saharan Africa.   

A hepatopancreaticobiliary and gastrointestinal surgical oncologist, Lumati is actively involved in health services research within the context of global oncology, with a focus on healthcare financing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Over the last 15 years, she has been involved in global health efforts, specifically focused on healthcare financing in Sub-Saharan Africa (Ghana and Nigeria). In 2018, as a Fogarty-Fulbright Fellow — offered through the University of California GloCal Health Fellowship — Lumati collaborated with the Ghana Ministry of Health on a study that evaluated the impact of health insurance on out-of-pocket expenditures for surgical care, and she is a member of the African Research Group in Oncology (ARGO), a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer consortium of 32 cancer centers and hospitals.ARGO, which was founded by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, remains the main collaborator for her work. In the last seven years, Lumati has also worked as a surgical oncology consultant at Lakeshore Cancer Center, the first comprehensive cancer center in Nigeria. Her long-term plans include improving access to cancer care in Sub-Saharan Africa by strengthening universal health coverage and multidisciplinary care, inclusive of surgery, through healthcare financing. Through service as chair of the Global Affairs Committee of the Association of Academic Surgery and collaboration with the low- and middle-income (LMIC) working group of the American Cancer Society, the International Committee of the Society of Surgical Oncology and the American College of Surgeons, Lumati aims to continue to foster partnerships with LMIC investigators to build local capacity to address financial toxicity of cancer care in resource-limited settings. 

In addition, Lumati has received multiple recognitions for her work, including a Society of Surgical Oncology Presidential Scholars award, Boston Congress of Public Health’s 40 Under 40 Public Health Catalyst Award, San Diego Business Journal’s Power 20 and the Gazi Zibari Global Outreach Humanitarian Award by Americas Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association. 

In 2025, Lumati was also awarded the Global Oncology Young Investigator Award (GO YIA) from the Conquer Cancer Foundation. The GO YIA provides research funding to promising young physicians during the final years of training to support their transition to faculty appointments and to encourage quality research in clinical oncology. In 2026, Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation, will present more than $11.7 million in funding through more than 480 grants and awards spanning multiple areas of cancer care.  

“I am incredibly grateful to the Conquer Cancer Foundation for standing beside my work two years in a row,” Lumati said. “This journey has always been deeply personal and profoundly human to me. Thank you for elevating my voice, believing in this mission and reminding me that compassion, humility and humanity still have a place at the heart of medicine. My hope is that one day no cancer patient — no matter where they are born, live or seek care — is ever left behind.”