Dr. Delk is a tenured Associate Professor in Biological Sciences, the Assistant Vice President for Research Development, and fellow Cecil H. and Ida Green Professor in Systems Biology Science at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Dr. Nikki Delk will be featured at the inaugural session. Dr. Delk is a tenured Associate Professor in Biological Sciences, the Assistant Vice President for Research Development, and fellow Cecil H. and Ida Green Professor in Systems Biology Science at the University of Texas at Dallas, and recently named in the Cell Press list of 1000 Inspiring Black Scientists in America. Her lab studies inflammation-induced breast and prostate cancer progression and treatment resistance, and her research is supported by funding from the University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas), National Cancer Institute, and the American Cancer Society. After receiving her bachelors in math from Georgetown University, she was commissioned as an Air Force Officer where she served for four years before obtaining her doctorate in molecular biology from Rice University. She received a doctorate to pursue her childhood dream of being a cancer biologist in honor of her grandmother, who passed from cancer. She was a postdoctoral fellow at MD Anderson Cancer Center and a postdoctoral and faculty fellow at Rice University before joining the faculty at UT Dallas in 2014. Dr. Delk also loves to paint and dance, and in 2021, she started Arts for Science to do STEM outreach through the arts.