laying the groundwork: dr. elisa rodriguez

Dr. Elisa Rodriguez can carry a conversation about anything from her favorite books and her big, close-knit Puerto Rican family to community-based cancer prevention and the importance of diversity in science and medicine. 

Her favorite subject, though, is her seven-year-old daughter, Chloe, the driving force behind everything Elisa does and the single most important part of her life. She is determined to make everything possible for Chloe.

When Chloe first told Elisa, “I want to be a researcher-doctor like you,” Elisa felt at once a surge of pride and a twinge of fear. 

Pride, because she knows that Chloe can be anything she wants to be. 

And fear, because she remembers so well the unique hurdles she herself faced as she set out on her career, the challenges that women of color face in academia and science–challenges she hopes Chloe won’t encounter. 

This is why when Elisa accepted the position of Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Buffalo, New York’s Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center–in addition to her roles as Associate Professor of Oncology and Director of Community Engagement Resource–she took on the work with a profound sense of its gravity.

Elisa spends each day laying the groundwork for her vision of a more equitable world, one in which community is central and people come first, no matter their background or circumstance.

There is an intensity behind Elisa’s voice when she talks about the way she’s tackling diversity, equity, and inclusion at Roswell Park.

“Diversity is a fact,” she says, “not something we have to prove. And we know that organizations that are more diverse have better outcomes.”

Elisa’s top priority lies in the sustainability of her DEI initiatives. She wants to create a culture of inclusion and openness to voices in research, medicine, and advocacy that lasts beyond her tenure.

“I want to be training and giving opportunities to folks so that when I move on, someone is there to continue the work,” she explains. “It’s so important to me that I engage and elevate the voices of a diverse new generation of leaders.”

This is personal for Elisa. The next generation of leaders she’s fighting for might one day include Chloe–and it wasn’t so long ago that Elisa herself was finding her own footing in the field.

“I came into this role by way of my research, my work, and my education,” Elisa says. “But I also came into it by way of my lived experience.”

Elisa was born in Buffalo and spent much of her childhood on the West Side. Her earliest memories are of her family–her mother and father, who were unwavering in their quest to build the very best life for Elisa and her sisters; her grandparents, who operated a grocery store on West Avenue where they exemplified what it means to take care of one’s community; and all the aunts, uncles, and cousins whose homes were just steps away from Elisa’s. 

As a student at Buffalo Public School 76, Elisa spent as much time as she could at the library, where she says she would tear through every book the librarian handed her and run back for another until there was nothing left on the shelves that she hadn’t read.

When she was in third grade, her teacher suggested to Elisa’s parents that they consider moving her to another school, one with the extra resources to feed her voracious appetite for learning. 

They took her for a meeting with the headmaster at Calasanctius Preparatory School, where gifted students were exposed to literature, composition, and languages in a unique, collaborative environment; with scholarships, they were able to enroll her the following year.

“It was my Harry Potter experience,” Elisa says of her years at Calasanctius, “because that school was such a magical place for me. I just loved being in a place where I was encouraged to pursue what I was most interested in.”

Though she’d always gravitated toward reading and writing, Elisa also excelled at math and science.

She completed her bachelor’s degree in sociology and anthropology at Canisius College while taking science courses at Erie Community College in the summers. After graduating, she went to the University at Buffalo for her master’s degree in natural sciences.

As a graduate student, Elisa wasn’t yet married to any particular career path; she was studying for the MCAT in her free time, but began researching other options, too. And when she discovered the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, she felt the same sense of magic she’d felt as a child in the classrooms of Calasantius, and knew she’d found her calling. 

At Johns Hopkins, Elisa found a new sense of purpose, inspired by opportunities she’d never imagined she would have. 

“I was surrounded by discussions of public health and social justice, by doctors and researchers who were really trying to change the world, to make it a better place,” she says. “That was pivotal for me, because it was where the idea of community in a healthcare context really came into focus.”

Community health has remained central to Elisa’s research and work throughout her career. She brings her expertise in both natural and social sciences together to address health disparities faced by minority and medically underserved populations through research and outreach.

A key component of her work is facilitating partnerships between Roswell Park and members of Western New York communities where health inequities are felt most acutely. 

“The preventative care aspect, that’s where community health comes into play, and that’s always had a special place in my heart,” she explains. “It’s about reaching communities who really need access to cancer prevention, and working with doctors, community health workers, advocates, and educators to address the inequities we see.”

Elisa possesses a talent for building relationships of trust within the communities she serves. And she’s deeply protective of the people with whom she’s built these relationships, because she believes that the trust they place in her represents the best path to improved health outcomes–improved lives–for community members.

“It’s not easy to establish these relationships, to establish trust,” Elisa says. “So once we have that, we have to do our work in a way that’s respectful of the community. I’m not compromising when it comes to respect for these communities.”

She knows that the most effective approach to science and medicine is about more than biology–it takes into account the historical, social, and economic factors that contribute to health outcomes.

The common thread in all the work Elisa does at Roswell Park, internally on the diversity, equity, and inclusion front and externally on the community health front, is her passion for building a more equitable healthcare landscape. 

In just a couple of conversations with Elisa, you get a sense of the type of person she is.

She pours her entire self into everything she does. She carries her identities–as a public health expert, a Puerto Rican woman, a daughter, a sister, and a mother–with assurance and pride. She’s as comfortable sharing her vulnerability as she is wielding the fierceness of her convictions.

Most of all, you get the sense that Elisa will not falter on her mission of paving the way for her daughter–and for everyone who will follow in her footsteps with their own dreams of changing the world.