CURRICULUM VITAE & EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
Upon recognizing significant unmet needs and challenges in patients’ journeys throughout their cancer diagnosis, through survivorship or end-of-life care, Dr. Grace Cordovano founded Enlightening Results, LLC in 2010. As the culmination of her life’s experiential learning and education, Dr. Cordovano is dedicated to fostering private, personalized patient advocacy services, specializing in the cancer arena. She is a firm believer in the continuous advancement and improvement of cancer patient experiences through the infusion of empathic design and thinking into current healthcare paradigms. Grace is a member of the Alliance of Professional Health Advocates (APHA), the Society for Participatory Medicine (SPM), Health 2.0 NYC, and an ambassador for Citizen Health. She enjoys volunteering her time as an associate editor of the Society for Participatory Medicine's newsletter team. Having met the standards and competencies defined through the international credential defined by the Patient Advocate Certification Board, Dr. Cordovano is a board certified patient advocate (BCPA) and is proud to deliver services and expertise of the highest ethical, strategic, and intellectual caliber.
During her role as Director of Medical and Scientific Affairs at 81qd (New York, NY), Dr. Cordovano was involved in medical quality assurance and medical strategic direction within all aspects of clientele projects across a variety of therapeutic spheres. She had the opportunity to work with many top pharmaceutical and biotech companies, developing various aspects of their strategic platforms to advance their drugs through clinical trials or to give them a competitive edge against other competing drugs in their class. Dr. Cordovano quickly demonstrated in depth understanding of assigned therapeutic areas as well as sound understanding of brand life cycles and strategies. She is proficient in physician profiling, clinical trial and clinical trial site analysis, pharmaceutical competitive intelligence, hospital assessment, publication gap analysis, biomarker discovery, and key opinion leader (KOL) sentiment analysis. She was an asset in streamlining workflow processes to improve intelligent data retrieval, contextual data analysis, and intuitive data exchange to meet stringent deadlines. Dr. Cordovano regularly supported upper management in all aspects of new business development, procurement, and new business acquisition. In 2009, she was recognized with the Outstanding Employee Achievement Award. Dr. Cordovano holds a doctorate and Masters degree in Biochemistry from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University (Bronx, NY), working under the mentorship of Dr. Vern Schramm, a pioneer in new strategies for treating cancer and inhibitor drug design. Her thesis focused on characterizing drug candidates for potential chemopreventive use in various cellular and animal models of cancer, including prostate and breast cancer. Dr. Cordovano collaborated with Dr. John Martignetti from Mount Sinai Hospital (New York, NY) to assist in characterizing a very rare cancer syndrome, called diaphyseal medullary stenosis with malignant fibrous histiocytoma (DMS-MFH), characterized by bone dysplasia, myopathy, and bone cancer. In 2006, she was one of 40 graduate students selected from applicants nationwide to present at the National Graduate Student Symposium at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. She was invited to present her thesis research at the International Conference on the Role of Polyamines and their Analogues in Cancer at the University of Rome, Italy (2006). Dr. Cordovano was awarded the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from 2004 - 2007.
Dr. Cordovano’s love for basic research was truly fostered at her alma mater, Drew University (Madison, NJ) where she was selected to conduct research at the prestigious Research Institute for Scientists Emeriti (RISE) program under the mentorship of world-renowned industrial microbiologist, Dr. Arnold Demain. She was one of the first two women to graduate Drew University as a Biochemistry major. She was recognized as a Distinguished RISE alumni speaker at Drew University (2010) in light of her entrepreneurship and proactivity in the sciences.
Dr. Cordovano is passionate about leveraging digital technology, innovation, and social media to deliver credible content that resonates with patients, that is crafted in a culturally sensitive manner and at an appropriate health literacy to deliver authentic value. She's a champion for the use of digital tech and social media to bridge gaps in informational silos and fallout from poor interoperability. She firmly believes that ideation, implementation, and mass adoption of digital tech must happen through the lens of empathy, in partnership with patients and carepartners, to deliver valuable, human-centered care. Dr. Cordovano collaborated with the American Medical Association on their Digital Health Implementation Playbook to ensure implementation strategies are inclusive of understanding the lay patient's and carepartner's experience, health literacy, values, preferences, and needs.
With over 20 years of advocacy experience, she thoroughly understands the barriers patients face with information blocking and lack of transparency. Dr. Cordovano co-founded Unblock Health to empower patients and their carepartners to hold the ecosystem accountable and fight back against information blocking where patients are in their local communities.
Dr. Cordovano completed her Masters and Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Bronx, NY). She is a board-certified patient advocate via the international credentialing of the Patient Advocate Certification Board. She serves as one of 5 national e-patient ambassadors for the Coalition of Compassionate Care of California. Dr. Cordovano has been repeatedly recognized as Patient Advocate of the Year, most recently at the 2019 Health IT and Marketing & PR Community Conference Medigy Awards. She has been featured in StatNews, KevinMD, Tincture, The Healthcare Blog, US News & World Report, Kaiser News, etc.
Follow her on Twitter at @GraceCordovano.
