Olivera Finn was awarded the PNC Elsie Hillman Distinguished Scholar Award

Olivera J. Finn, Distinguished Professor of Immunology and Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, was presented with the 2025 PNC Elsie Hillman Distinguished Scholar Award for her decades of research in immunology and groundbreaking work on developing a vaccine to prevent several human cancers, including breast cancer. 

The PNC Elsie Hillman award, now in its 14th year, honors advancements in cancer research and treatment and recognizes those who support these efforts at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, the region’s only National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Finn is the founding chair of the Department of Immunology at the School of Medicine, a position she held from 2002 to 2013. She also served as the program leader of the Cancer Immunology Program at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center from 1991 to 2014. Finn’s research has focused on developing vaccines to prevent cancer. She is credited with identifying a human tumor antigen called MUC1 and showing through her pre-clinical research that anti-MUC1 immune responses can reject tumors. This discovery led to clinical trials testing this vaccine first in cancer patients and now has led to the development of the first vaccine aimed at preventing breast cancer, which is currently in clinical trials. 

Finn is an active member of the American Association of Immunologists (AAI), where she served as president 2007-2008. She is also member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC). She has trained 25 PhD and MD/PhD students in her laboratory and more than 70 postdoctoral fellows. 

Other honors include the AAI Lifetime Achievement Award, the NCI Outstanding Investigator Award, the AACR CIR Lloyd Old Cancer Immunology Prize and the SITC Richard V. Smalley Memorial Award, a prestigious award for clinicians and scientists who have an enormous impact on cancer immunotherapy research. She is a Fellow of the American Association of Immunologists and fellow of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Immuno-oncology Academy.