S. Gail Eckhardt is the inaugural director of the LIVESTRONG Cancer Institutes of the Dell Medical School. She is overseeing the creation of a transdisciplinary cancer research program at The University of Texas at Austin, one that will lead to new models of prevention, treatment and patient-centered cancer care, and new models of teaching and training future doctors.

Eckhardt came to Dell Medical School from the University of Colorado Denver’s Anschutz Medical Campus, where she led the Division of Medical Oncology for eight years.

She graduated from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and, before moving to Colorado, served as associate director of clinical research at the Cancer Therapy and Research Center’s Institute for Drug Development in San Antonio.

Eckhardt conducted her internship and residency in internal medicine at the University of Virginia Medical School. She completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in experimental and molecular medicine at Scripps Research Institute and a fellowship in medical oncology at the University of California, San Diego.

Eckhardt has served in national leadership roles including the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Molecular Oncology Task Force, the ASCO Board of Directors, the FDA Oncology Drugs Advisory Committee and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Centers Study Section. She is a member of the NCI Investigational Drug Steering Committee and the NCI Colorectal Cancer Task Force, and she serves on seven external advisory boards of NCI-designated cancer centers.

Eckhardt is the principal investigator on studies involving early clinical trials and colorectal cancer research. She has conducted numerous phase I and II clinical trials and has published more than 177 manuscripts.