Elena Levi-D’Ancona serves as a Science Policy Fellow at Friends of Cancer Research (Friends). Friends is an advocacy organization based in Washington, DC that drives collaboration among partners from every healthcare sector to power advances in science, policy, and regulation that speeds up life-saving treatments to patients.
In her role at Friends, Elena contributes to both research and policy initiatives, leveraging her background in science, communication, and advocacy. She works closely with the Science Policy and Public Affairs teams to make Friends’ research projects more accessible to a broader audience.
Elena earned her PhD in Immunology from the University of Michigan, where she also completed the Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) certificate program, gaining a strong foundation in policy writing and analysis. During her graduate studies, she was selected as a Washington Fellow by the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), through which she participated in a Hill Day to advocate for continued NIH funding and authored a policy brief. She holds a BS in Biochemistry from Tulane University.