12 leaders selected for the 2024-2025 ASCO Leadership Development Program
“We congratulate the 12 leaders selected for the 2024-2025 Leadership Development Program (LDP), and we encourage those interested in shaping the future of oncology to apply for the 2025-2026 LDP; applications are currently open.”
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is a leading professional organization representing nearly 45,000 physicians and oncology specialists worldwide, dedicated to cancer care. Founded in 1964 by Fred Ansfield, Harry Bisel, Herman Freckman, Arnoldus Goudsmit, Robert Talley, William Wilson, and Jane C. Wright, ASCO is committed to advancing cancer research, education, prevention, and high-quality patient care.
Manali A. Bhave, MD | Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University
Dr. Bhave is an Assistant Professor and medical oncologist in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory University. She serves as Director of the Phase I Clinical Trials Unit and Vice Chair of the Data and Safety Monitoring Committee at Winship Cancer Institute. She received her medical degree from Northwestern University in Chicago, IL where she also completed her internal medicine residency. She then obtained her fellowship training in hematology and medical oncology at University of Michigan where she served as Chief Fellow.
Her clinical expertise is in breast medical oncology with a research focus on developing and conducting early phase clinical trials and investigating biomarkers of response and resistance to guide novel therapeutic strategies for advanced breast cancers. Dr. Bhave also has a strong interest in clinical trial operations and has worked in her role as Director of the Phase I Clinical Trials Unit to expand access to and improve diversity on phase I clinical trials.
She completed the ASCO Komen/QOPI Quality Training Program and served on ASCO’s Annual Meeting Education Committee for Developmental Therapeutics – Molecularly Targeted Agent and Tumor Biology (Track Leader from 2021-2022). She participates actively in the cooperative group setting and serves on the NCI BIO Task Force for the Breast Cancer Steering Committee.
Jad Chahoud, MD, MHA | Moffitt Cancer Center
Dr. Chahoud completed his Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center and completed his hematology and medical oncology fellowship at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Dr. Chahoud is currently a member of the GU Oncology department and Immunology department at Moffitt Cancer Center.
Dr. Chahoud is the medical director of the IPOP (inpatient outpatient infusion service) at Moffitt. Dr. Chahoud’s clinical and research includes advanced kidney and penile cancers.
Fumiko Chino, MD | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Fumiko Ladd Chino is an attending in Radiation Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, who specializes in gynecological and breast cancers. She was also a caregiver for her husband Andrew Mark Ladd, PhD who died from cancer in 2007. She is a recipient of numerous awards, including ASCO Excellence in Equity Award (2022), Duke Radiation Oncology Award for Outstanding Clinical Research (2019), Duke University Hospital “Good Catch” Award (2018), Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO Merit Award (2018), Duke University School of Medicine Dean’s Recognition Award (2014) and Memorial Hermann Hospital, Texas Medical Center Volunteer of the Year Award (2009).
Stephen Chun, MD | MD Anderson
Dr. Chun is an Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology and Director of Radiation Oncology Clinical Research for the Houston Area Locations at MD Anderson. His efforts to expand clinical trial access for underserved communities are supported by National Cancer Institute R50 funding for which he is Principal Investigator.
Dr. Chun has led multiple prospective clinical studies for aerodigestive cancers and conducted lung cancer disparities research that has been recognized by awards from ASTRO, ASCO, the IASLC and NRG Oncology. With the NRG Oncology group, he is a member of the Lung Core Committee, Radiation Oncology Committee and Protocol Operations Management Oversight Committee where he is leading the rollout of the NRG Oncology Podcast.
Mentorship is a source of pride for Dr. Chun as he has guided numerous trainees to high-impact publications including female and minority investigators. As an avid classical violinist, Dr. Chun has frequently volunteered his artistry in the community.
Erin Cobain, MD | University of Michigan
Dr. Cobain is an Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center where she serves as Co-Director of the Breast Cancer Clinical Research Team. Her research focuses on identifying those at high risk of developing breast cancer and personalizing therapy for those with a breast cancer diagnosis through genetic and genomic testing.
Dr. Cobain is a recent recipient of an American Cancer Society clinician scientist development grant and is also very active within the SWOG breast cancer committee, serving as study chair of a clinical trial exploring use of combination chemo-immunotherapy for patients with high-risk, hormone receptor positive, HER2-negative early-stage breast cancer.
Within the Rogel Cancer Center, Dr. Cobain is a member of the emerging leaders council and the protocol review committee. Within ASCO, she is a member of the TAPUR molecular tumor board and recently served as chair of the education committee for the prevention, risk reduction and hereditary cancers track at the ASCO annual meeting.
Ibiayi Dagogo-Jack, MD | Massachusetts General Hospital
Dr. Dagogo-Jack received her bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University and her medical degree from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. She trained in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and completed hematology/oncology fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Dana Farber Cancer Institute. She is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a thoracic oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital.
She conducts clinical/translational research focused on understanding mechanisms underlying resistance to therapies for lung cancer and mesothelioma. She leads the MGH Mesothelioma program and is the Cancer Center’s Oncology Molecular Pathology Liaison/ Director of Molecular Testing Integration.
Dr. Dagogo-Jack has served on AACR, IASLC, and ASCO Committees, including leadership roles on the Education Committee and Taxonomy Committee. She is deeply invested in her work with the thoracic oncology research and patient community, which includes editorial positions for multiple journals, advisory committee roles, and partnerships with patient groups and nonprofits.
Rawad Elias, MD | Baystate Health
Dr. Elias serves as the Medical Director for Cancer Services at Baystate Health and holds the position of Chief of the Hematology-Oncology Division at UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate. He is recognized for his expertise in geriatric oncology, particularly clinical implementation and models of care. Dr. Elias has a particular interest in developing healthcare delivery models for real-world practice.
Before joining Baystate Health, he led the development of a pioneering care delivery model for older adults with cancer at Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute where he served as the medical director for geriatric oncology. His clinical practice focuses on gastrointestinal malignancies and geriatric oncology.
Born and raised in Lebanon, Dr. Elias completed his medical education at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik. He then underwent training in internal medicine at Atlantic Health – Morristown Medical Center, followed by a fellowship in Geriatrics and Hematology-Oncology at Boston Medical Center.
Shilpa Gupta, MD | Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Dr. Shilpa Gupta is the Director of Genitourinary Medical Oncology at Taussig Cancer Institute and Co-Leader of the Genitourinary Oncology Program at Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Gupta’s extensive research focuses on novel drug development and biomarkers of response/resistance in bladder cancer, contributing to numerous published works and leadership roles in clinical trials. Shilpa also got promoted to Professor of Medicine at Cleveland Clinic.
Brian S. Henick, MD | Columbia University
Dr. Henick is a medical oncologist specializing in the care of patients with cancers of the lung, head/neck, and esophagus. He serves as the Interim Director of Experimental Therapeutics and Director of Translational Research, Upper-Aerodigestive Malignancies in Columbia’s Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. In these roles, Dr. Henick seeks to improve the therapeutic index of novel therapies by identifying patient-level predictors of efficacy and toxicity, including histology, genomics, and immunobiology.
These interests led him to serve on the editorial board of JCO Precision Oncology and the Steering Committee of AACR’s Project GENIE. To assure clinical and translational relevance to the underserved populations disproportionately affected by these cancers, Dr. Henick participates in the Robert A Winn Diversity in Clinical Trials program, is the NRG Champion of PRAGMATICA-Lung, and co-leads a phase IV study of immunotherapy in patients from underrepresented populations with lung cancer via Stand Up to Cancer’s Health Equity program.
Sadhana Jackson, MD | National Institutes of Health
Dr. Jackson attended Hampton University where she received her Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology. She then obtained her MD from Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) and subsequently completed a residency in Pediatrics at Orlando Health. After completing a fellowship in pediatric hematology/oncology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, she finished her training at Johns Hopkins for a joint fellowship in pediatric neuro-oncology and clinical pharmacology.
Dr. Sadhana Jackson is a board-certified pediatrician and pediatric hematologist/oncologist with clinical expertise and research efforts related to the blood-brain barrier and malignant glioma. Her clinical practice focuses on drug delivery of systemic agents for pediatric malignant brain tumor patients. As a tenure-track Investigator in NINDS and NCI, Dr. Jackson ties her clinical practice to her research efforts focused on understanding the heterogeneous permeability of the blood-brain barrier amongst malignant gliomas.
Miriam Knoll, MD | Northwell
Miriam A. Knoll is a radiation oncologist at Advanced Radiation Oncology Services at Montefiore Nyack Hospital in New York. Before joining Dr. Gerstley at Advanced Radiation Oncology Services, she was a radiation oncologist at the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center and also served as a Medical Director of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Hackensack UMC Mountainside in New Jersey. Dr. Knoll is a Forbes Healthcare contributor and writes for the ASCO Connection and numerous other media outlets. She is an Associate Senior Editor of the American Society of Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Advances in Radiation Oncology. Dr. Knoll is President of the Jewish Orthodox Women’s Medical Association.
Christina Ahn Minami, MD, MS | Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Dr. Minami is an Associate Surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH)/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. She received her MD from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop in fiction writing, and an MS in health services and outcomes research at Northwestern University.
She completed her general surgery residency at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and a breast surgical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She is core faculty at the Center for Surgery and Public Health at BWH, with a research focus on avoiding both over- and under-treatment of older adults with breast cancer.
Ryan Nipp, MD, MPH | University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
Dr. Nipp is a gastrointestinal oncologist and cancer outcomes researcher at the University of Oklahoma (OU) Health Sciences Center and the OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center. He is the Director of Geriatric Oncology, Director of Cancer Outcomes Research, Director of Trainee Research, and the Associate Fellowship Director for the Oncology Fellowship at OU Health. Dr. Nipp completed internal medicine residency at Duke University and oncology fellowship at Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center.
His research focuses on optimizing care delivery and outcomes for patients with cancer. Specifically, his research platform consists of studies interfacing between palliative care, geriatric oncology, and health services research. Dr. Nipp has had the honor of serving on the ASCO Quality Care Symposium planning committee (2021-2023), the ASCO Annual Meeting Education Committee, the ASCO Palliative Care Guideline Panel, and as an Associate Editor for JCO Oncology Practice and Section Editor for The Oncologist.
Sami Saleem Omar, MD | Rizgary Teaching Hospital
Dr. Omar graduated from the College of Medicine at Hawler Medical University (HMU) in Erbil, Iraq, in June 2009. He became a licensed Medical Oncologist Specialist by the Kurdistan Higher Council for Medical Specialties (KHCMS) in October 2018. Since 2019, Dr. Omar has served as a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Koya’s Faculty of Medicine.
In March 2023, he assumed the role of Head of the Medical Committee at the Ministry of Health’s Cancer Patients Support Fund. Since 2020, Dr. Omar has been a board member of the Kscien Organization, a non-profit dedicated to confronting predatory publishing and creating the most up-to-date list of predatory journals and publishers worldwide.
Dr. Omar has been recognized with prestigious awards such as the ASCO IDEA Award in 2020 and the ASCO Virtual Mentoring Program Award in 2022. He holds active memberships with both the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO). His specific areas of interest include breast cancer and neuroendocrine tumors.
Mina Sedrak, MD, MS | University of California Los Angeles
Dr. Sedrak is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of the Cancer and Aging Program at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He obtained his B.A. from the University of Chicago, M.D. from Rush Medical College, and M.S. in Health Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, where he also completed his residency in internal medicine and fellowship in hematology/oncology.
His research is focused on understanding the mechanisms underlying cancer therapy-induced accelerated aging and, in turn, developing mechanism-based interventions to mitigate accelerated aging in cancer patients. His research has been recognized by the NIA, receiving the Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award.
Beyond his research, he actively advocates for increased inclusion of older and frail adults in cancer clinical trials. He is also committed to mentoring and serving the scientific community through his roles as Vice Chair of the Alliance Cancer in the Older Adult Committee and Chair-Elect of the Research Committee in ASCO.
Gita Thanarajasingam, MD | Mayo Clinic
Dr. Thanarajasingam is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology, Lymphoma Disease Group at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. She is a graduate of Yale University and Mayo Medical School, and completed her residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School followed by hematology/oncology and advanced lymphoma fellowships at Mayo Clinic.
Her clinical practice is the care of patients with Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Her health outcomes research program focuses on improving adverse event (AE) evaluation and measuring treatment tolerability in patients with cancer. She developed the Toxicity over Time (ToxT), a longitudinal approach to AE evaluation.
She is the recipient of K and U01 grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the lead commissioner for the Lancet Hematology AE Commission, and an ad-hoc member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Oncology Drug Advisory Committee with expertise in toxicity assessment.
Namrata Vijayvergia, MD, FACP | Fox Chase Cancer Center
Dr. Vijayvergia is an Associate Professor of Hematology and Oncology and Assistant Chief of GI Medical Oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA. Board certified in hematology and oncology, Dr. Vijayvergia is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. She is a GI Medical Oncologist with a passion for neuroendocrine and colorectal malignancies with research interest in developing new treatment paradigms for these cancers and improve the patient experience throughout the cancer journey.
Her mission is to advance patient-centric care with a focus on personalized medicine, ctDNA science and novel drug targets. While patient care is her foremost priority, she has successfully developed and run early and late phase clinical trials and other research studies with federal, foundation and industry grant support. With a goal-oriented and data-driven approach, she has successfully led teams in the GI program as the Medical Director for Fox Chase’s community affiliate sites program.
