Smita Bhatia, MD, MPH

Smita Bhatia, MD, MPH, is a distinguished pediatric oncologist with a strong interest in cancer outcomes across all diagnoses and all age groups. She joined Children's of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to tackle the health challenges cancer survivors’ face during and after treatment. As a professor in the UAB Department of Pediatrics, Bhatia is serving as the founding director of the Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship in the UAB School of Medicine, vice chair for outcomes in the Department of Pediatrics. She is a member of the Children’s of Alabama medical staff. She is the inaugural holder of the Gay and Bew White Endowed Chair in Pediatric Oncology. Over the past 9 years at UAB/ Children’s, Bhatia has recruited 17 physician-scientists and developed a strong infrastructure for the conduct of Outcomes Research. She has developed multidisciplinary survivorship clinics for survivors of childhood cancer, breast cancer and head and neck cancer. She is continuing to follow a cohort of 10,000 blood or marrow transplant survivors and describe the landscape of morbidity experienced by these patients. Furthermore, she is developing and testing interventions to improve adherence to oral medications among children with cancer. She is also examining the molecular basis of treatment-related toxicities. Bhatia came to Birmingham from the City of Hope in Duarte, Calif., where she established the Department of Population Sciences and served as its chair. While at City of Hope, she became the inaugural holder of the Ruth Ziegler Chair in Population Sciences. During her 18 years at City of Hope, Bhatia made several significant scientific contributions. She ensured comprehensive follow-up of all patients undergoing hematopoietic cell transplantation, identifying chronic health issues among the survivors. She developed multidisciplinary survivorship clinics for cancer survivors, providing these individuals with state-of-the-art comprehensive follow-up care in the setting of clinical research. 
With over 480 peer-reviewed publications and continuous funding from NCI and LLS since 2000, Bhatia is an internationally renowned leader in cancer outcomes and survivorship. She serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Clinical Oncology and Senior Editor for Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention. She is an elected member of American Society for Clinical Investigation and Association of American Physicians. She is the recipient of the Frank H Oski Lectureship Award from ASPHO, the Clinical Scholar Award from LLS and the Outstanding Investigator Award from the NCI. She was the recipient of the Dean’s Excellence Award in Mentoring (2020), and the Distinguished Professor award from UAB (2021).