My name is Noelle Cooper and I work as a hematology-oncology nurse practitioner at MaineHealth Cancer Care. Throughout my life, I have always been passionate about my community in Maine and the pursuit of education.

My appetite for education temporarily took me to Boston, Massachusetts when I accepted an opportunity to participate in the Harvard Interprofessional Palliative Care Fellowship. Through this fellowship, I discovered my love for oncology and found myself staying in Boston to work and gain experience on a malignant hematology, transplant, and cellular therapy floor. In that role, it did not take me long to realize that a large proportion of patients being treated in Boston were actually from my own home state of Maine.

While working at MGH, I became acutely aware of the challenges experienced by Mainers seeking a variety of standard of care oncology treatments. More specifically, cellular therapy treatments, with the biggest barrier requiring travel and temporary relocation to Boston for treatment. Ultimately this discovery led to a new passion: returning home to my community with the goal of leveraging my expertise and experiences to help make these treatments available to patients closer to home.

On July 13th I will be participating and running in a backyard ultramarathon race. I hope to use this local Portland event as a means to raise funds to invest in supporting necessary nursing and staff education. Each race lap is 4.16 miles. Please consider donating a flat amount to support this cause. For folks that wish to donate per mile or lap, I will post the results after the race. My 2024 goal is to complete 10 laps, or 41 miles. All proceeds will directly be used for education related to building cellular therapy access in Maine.

To learn more about the race please click below:

https://ultrasignup.com/register.aspx?did=108266