AAS Member Spotlight for January 2021 – Benjamin Powers, MD MS

Dr. Benjamin Powers is a fellowship-trained assistant member of surgical oncology and a member of the Health Outcomes and Behavior Program at Moffitt Cancer Center. He is also an assistant professor of oncologic science at the University of South Florida.  Dr. Powers attended medical school at Wayne State University and completed his general surgery residency at Temple University Hospital.  During his training, he completed two years of research as a co-investigator at the U54-funded Asian Community Cancer Health Disparities Center using his background in anthropology and fluency in Mandarin Chinese to conduct community-based participatory research. He also obtained a master’s degree in clinical research. He then completed a surgical oncology fellowship at Moffitt Cancer Center. As a fellow and faculty-member, he has helped create the surgical oncology fellowship didactic curriculum.

Since joining the faculty at Moffitt, Dr. Powers was awarded a Miles for Moffitt grant to address socioeconomic disparities in foregut cancers in Florida, which has provided preliminary data for a K award submission. He is also a co-investigator of the Florida Pancreas Collaborative, a multi-institutional network of 15 academic and community health systems to address pancreatic cancer disparities. His current research is focused on treatment access and coordination for complex gastrointestinal cancers. Dr. Powers has been an AAS member for several years and is currently the Institutional Representative for Moffitt Cancer Center.