Kristen Dahlgren Chief External Affairs Officer External Affairs Biography Kristen Dahlgren is Chief External Affairs Officer at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), where she brings a unique combination of storytelling, strategic vision, and lived experience to accelerate the development of new treatments for patients. A breast cancer survivor, Kristen spent decades as an award-winning national correspondent for NBC News, reporting for TODAY and NBC Nightly News, before founding the Cancer Vaccine Coalition (CVC), a nonprofit dedicated to advancing therapeutic cancer vaccines. In 2026, CVC announced a strategic integration with PICI, bringing its mission and momentum into PICI’s effort to advance cutting-edge cancer immunotherapy. Under her leadership, and in less than two years, CVC became a catalyst for collaboration in cancer vaccine development, funding trials and convening a first-of-its-kind global think tank to help align the field and accelerate progress. Kristen also serves as the only patient advocate on the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) initiative to shape a $200M public-private effort coordinating and scaling cancer vaccine development.