Shikha Jain

Dr. Shikha Jain

Dr. Shikha Jain is a triple board-certified hematologist-oncologist at the University of Illinois Cancer Center and a tenured associate professor of medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine.

She serves as the associate director of oncology communications and digital innovation at the University of Illinois Cancer Center and as the director of rural transformation initiatives for UIC’s College of Medicine. Her clinical focus includes colorectal cancer, neuroendocrine tumors and pancreatic cancer, and she is a site principal investigator on multiple industry-sponsored and cooperative group clinical trials.

Jain is the founder and board chair of Women in Medicine, a national nonprofit dedicated to closing the gender gap in healthcare through mentorship, sponsorship, leadership development and advocacy.

Jain’s TEDx talk, “A Moonshot for Gender Equity,” reframes gender inequity in medicine as a systemic problem to be diagnosed and treated with the same rigor applied to disease, and it has been widely cited in national conversations on parity and leadership in healthcare. She is a nationally recognized keynote speaker on the impact of media and social media on healthcare, demystifying cancer care through open communication and education, physician leadership, mentorship, writing in medicine and gender equity.

She has been recognized as a healthcare leader, named the 2024 Illinois Physician Leader of the Year, a Castle Connolly Top Doctor and previously as one of Modern Healthcare’s Top 25 Emerging Leaders. She is a national spokesperson for the American Cancer Society, a contributor to an Emmy-nominated New York Times piece on prior authorizations and host of the Healio podcast “Oncology Overdrive.” She has served on a White House task force and held appointments with the National Academies and the Milken Institute. She is a co-founder of IMPACT, the Illinois clinician collaborative formed during the COVID-19 pandemic.