Our Team

Dr. Alicia Zhou, PhD, serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the Cancer Research Institute (CRI), a premier global nonprofit driving transformative advances in cancer immunotherapy. Under her leadership, CRI is at the forefront of harnessing the immune system to fight and ultimately cure all cancers. Since 1953, CRI has invested over $500 million into groundbreaking research programs that bridge laboratory innovations with clinical applications, profoundly transforming cancer treatment and improving patient outcomes.

Before joining CRI, Dr. Zhou was the Chief Science Officer at Color Health, where she led initiatives to improve patients’ access to cancer prevention and screening towards better patient outcomes and population health. Additionally, she played a key role as a Steering Committee member and Principal Investigator for the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s All of Us Research Program. This landmark initiative aims to ensure equitable and accessible precision medicine for all Americans. Dr. Zhou’s exceptional leadership and contributions were recognized in 2021 when she was named one of San Francisco Business Times’ 40 Under 40 and featured on Fierce Healthcare’s Most Influential Minority Executives List.

Dr. Zhou holds a B.S. in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Ph.D. in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Harvard University and completed her postdoctoral research in cancer biology at the University of California, San Francisco.