A New Era in Oncology: Dr. Eric J. Small Elected as ASCO President Alongside Distinguished Board Members

American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) shared on LinkedIn:

“Congratulations to Eric J. Small, MD, FASCO on being elected to serve as ASCO President for the 2025-2026 term!

Dr. Small will take office as President-Elect immediately after the ASCO24 Annual Business Meeting in June. Six additional members were elected to positions on the ASCO Board of Directors and Nominating Committee.

The full announcement

ASCO has elected Eric J. Small, MD, FASCO, to lead as its president beginning in June 2025. Dr. Small, a longtime ASCO member and volunteer, will take office as president-elect immediately following the ASCO Annual Business Meeting in Chicago on June 3, 2024. An additional six ASCO members were elected to serve on its Board of Directors and Nominating Committee.

“I am honored to serve ASCO as president to advance its mission of conquering cancer,” Dr. Small said. “The next decade will be undoubtedly pivotal for our profession. While we are well into an era of significant advances in diagnostics and therapeutics, cancer care providers are facing increasing administrative burdens and resultant burnout, and access to our tremendous advances is far from equitable, either at home or around the world. I look forward to helping ASCO rise to meet these challenges.”

Dr. Small currently serves as the co-leader of the UCSF Prostate Cancer Program and as deputy director and chief scientific officer of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. His practice and research focus is on urologic malignancies, with a particular interest in prostate cancer. Dr. Small previously served for 10 years as chief of the Division of Hematology and Oncology in the UCSF Department of Medicine.

He has extensive ASCO volunteer experience, most notably as a former Scientific Program Committee chair, as the founding scientific program chair of the ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, and as a member of the Board of Directors. Dr. Small most recently served as a mentor in ASCO’s Leadership Development Program, coaching, and advising mid-career members to become leaders in oncology. Dr. Small chairs five external advisory boards for other National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers. He is an international leader in prostate cancer research, has published 430 peer-reviewed articles, and was inducted into the OncLive Giants of Cancer Care in 2022.

New ASCO Board Members
ASCO’s Board of Directors is comprised of oncology leaders who are elected to positions reflecting various specialties within the field. The following physicians will begin 4-year terms as members of ASCO’s Board of Directors starting in June 2024:

Toni K. Choueiri, MD, FASCO, has been elected to an Undesignated Member seat. Dr. Choueiri is director of the Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and the Jerome and Nancy Kohlberg Chair and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He also serves as the medical director of international strategic initiatives at DFCI and is past president of the DFCI medical staff. He is chair of the ASCO Plenary Series, cofounder of the ASCO International Medical Graduates (IMG) Community of Practice, and has been a member of several task forces and the Annual Meeting Scientific and Education Program Committees.

Jhanelle E. Gray, MD, has been elected to an Undesignated Member seat. Dr. Gray is the department chair, program leader, and senior member for thoracic oncology at the Moffitt Cancer Center, co-leader of the Cancer Center Support Grant Molecular Medicine Program, and professor in the Department of Oncologic Sciences at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine. Dr. Gray also serves as co-leader of the Moffitt CCSG Molecular Medicine Program, and she holds leadership roles as a member of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) Board of Directors and chair of the NCI Adult National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) SWOG Lung Committee. She is a past chair of the Annual Meeting Education Program Committee and a past member of the Conquer Cancer Foundation Grants Selection Committee. She also served as a mentor for ASCO’s Oncology Summer Internship program.

Clarissa Mathias, MD, PhD, FASCO, has been elected to the International Oncologist seat. Dr. Mathias is a medical oncologist and director of NOB/Oncoclinicas in Brazil. She is chair of the Joint Certifications Committee, past member and track leader of the Annual Meeting Scientific Program Committee, and past chair of the International Affairs Committee.

Abby R. Rosenberg, MD, MS, MA, FAAP, has been elected to the Pediatric Oncologist seat. Dr. Rosenberg is the director of palliative care at Boston Children’s Hospital and chief of pediatric palliative care at DFCI. She is a past chair of the ASCO Ethics Committee and past member of the Cancer Care Delivery Council, Road to Recovery Task Force on Cancer Delivery, and Diversity and Inclusivity Task Force.

New Nominating Committee Members
Members of the Nominating Committee are tasked with developing a slate of candidates for elected ASCO positions. The following physicians will each serve a 3-year term on the ASCO Nominating Committee, beginning in June 2024:

Charu Aggarwal, MD, MPH, FASCO, has been elected to an Undesignated Member seat. Dr. Aggarwal is the Leslye M. Heisler Associate Professor for Lung Cancer Excellence at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the associate director of the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation. She is chair of ASCO’s Cancer Communications Committee, associate editor at Cancer.Net, a graduate of the Leadership Development Program, a past member of the Annual Meeting Scientific Program Committee and Annual Meeting Education Committee, and a former ASCO Advantage faculty member.

Kimmie Ng, MD, MPH, has been elected to an Undesignated Member seat. Dr. Ng is associate chief of the Division of Gastrointestinal Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She serves as director of translational research in the division and co-director of the Colon and Rectal Cancer Center. She is also the founding director of the Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer Center at DFCI. She is past chair of the Annual Meeting Scientific Program Committee, and a past member of the Plenary Series Scientific Review Committee. ”

Sources: ASCO / LinkedIn, ASCO Connection