Leadership and Core Faculty

Dr. Alfred Ian Lee is Professor of Medicine (Hematology) and Program Director for the hematology/oncology fellowship program. He received his MD/PhD from the Yale School of Medicine in 2004. Dr. Lee completed residency in internal medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, where he served as Chief Medical Resident, followed by a fellowship in hematology/oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His primary academic interests are classical hematology, thrombosis, and medical education. He has received such honors as the Charles W. Bohmfalk Prize for teaching in the basic sciences, the Leah M. Lowenstein Award for excellence in the promotion of humane and egalitarian medical education, the Yale Cancer Center Award for Mentorship Excellence, and the David J. Lefell Prize for Clinical Excellence.

Dr. Nikolai Podoltsev is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Hematology). His practice is focused on management of patients with acute leukemias, including acute myeloid leukemias (AML) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) as well as myeloid neoplasms like myelodisplastic syndromes (MDS) and myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs), such as polycythemia vera (PV), essential thrombocythemia (ET), myelofibrosis (MF), and chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) among others. He also provides care for patients with aplastic anemia and bone marrow failure syndromes and follows patients with clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP), and systemic mastocytosis and hypereosinophilic syndrome. He is the director of the Hematology/Leukemia Tumor Board. As the Associate Director of the Yale Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Program and Yale-New Haven Hospital Duffy Firm Chief for Education, Dr. Podoltsev is involved in organizing and providing hematology education for hematology/medical oncology fellows, internal medicine residents, and medical students. The Yale Cancer Outcomes Public Policy and Effectiveness Research (COPPER) Center membership helps Dr. Podoltsev to study epidemiology, and the patterns of care and outcomes of patients with hematological malignancies. Dr. Podoltsev is engaged in the clinical research programs of the Leukemia Clinical Research Team as a Principal Investigator for multiple clinical trials enrolling patients with acute leukemias and myeloid malignancies.

Dr. Sarah Goldberg is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the section of Medical Oncology at the Yale School of Medicine. As a thoracic oncologist she cares for patients with cancers of the chest including lung cancer, mesothelioma and thymoma. She is the Division Chief of Thoracic Oncology, the Research Director for the Center for Thoracic Cancers, and the Associate Program Director for the Medical Oncology-Hematology Fellowship Program at Yale.  She received her medical degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine and completed a Masters in Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. She conducts clinical and translational research on lung cancer with a focus on investigating biomarkers and novel treatment strategies in non-small cell lung cancer. Her specific research interests include EGFR mutation positive lung cancer, immunotherapeutics for lung cancer, and brain metastases. Learn more about Dr. Sarah Goldberg>>

David Braun, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) and a member of the Center of Molecular and Cellular Oncology (CMCO) at Yale Cancer Center. Dr. Braun cares for patients with kidney cancers. He received his PhD in Computational Biology from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Science at New York University and his medical degree from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He completed his residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital where he received the Dunn Medical Intern Award and served as Chief Medical Resident before completing fellowship training in adult oncology through the Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare program where he was appointed the Emil Frei Fellow and the John R. Svenson Fellow. Dr. Braun joined Yale from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute where he was an Instructor in Medicine with clinical and scientific interest in understanding and improving immune therapies for kidney cancer. He has a longstanding interest in integrating experimental and computational approaches to biomedical research and is currently studying mechanisms of response and resistance to immune therapy in kidney cancer, with the goal of developing novel therapies. He continues this work as part of the CMCO, which fosters and mentors physician-scientists as they advance their laboratory-based research programs to bridge fundamental cancer biology with clinical investigation for the translation of basic discoveries into better treatments or diagnosis.

Dr. Srikumar is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) and cares for patients as part of the Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center in New Haven as well as the Smilow Cancer Genetics and Prevention Program. After obtaining her undergraduate degree from Harvard, Dr. Srikumar received her medical degree from the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, and completed her residency at Yale where she also served as Chief Resident. She then went on to complete her fellowship and served as Chief Fellow in Hematology/Oncology at Yale, during which she obtained an Executive Master of Public Health degree in Epidemiology and Health Informatics tracks. Dr. Srikumar’s clinical and research efforts center around caring for young adults with gastrointestinal malignancies and patients found to be at high risk for developing gastrointestinal cancers due to certain genetic mutations. She is also passionate about medical education, and serves as an Assistant Program Director of the Yale Medical Oncology-Hematology Fellowship Program.

Dr. Layla Van Doren is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Hematology) and cares for patients with sickle cell disease and patients with bleeding and clotting disorders at Smilow Cancer Hospital. Dr. Van Doren received her medical degree from the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences and completed her residency at the University of Southern California. She went on to complete a hematology & oncology fellowship at Tufts Medical Center where she served as chief fellow. She also received an MBA in Healthcare Administration from Loma Linda University.Prior to joining Yale, Dr. Van Doren was an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology & Oncology at the Herbert Irving Cancer Center. Her clinical practice focused on the diagnosis and management of bleeding and clotting disorders, with a special emphasis in women’s health. She is also an expert in difficult-to-manage blood disorders. As a research fellow in the lab of Lidija Covic, PhD, Dr. Van Doren established a mechanistic framework and validated the pathophysiologic and therapeutic relevance of the lipid receptor GPR31 during PAR4-depedant platelet activation.

Dr. Halene is a physician-scientist who received her MD degree at Eberhardt-Karls-University in Tübingen, Germany. She subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Donald B. Kohn at CHLA in Los Angeles and her residency in internal medicine in the traditional program at Yale New Haven Hospital. She completed her fellowship in hematology/oncology at Yale and joined the ladder faculty at YSM as an assistant professor in 2010. At that time she was also named director of the Hematology Tissue Bank for Yale Cancer Center. She was promoted to associate professor in 2016 and subsequently served as interim chief of the Section of Hematology prior to her appointment as chief of that section in 2020. Her laboratory studies hematopoiesis and myelopoiesis and in particular how mutations in splicing factors and perturbations in RNA modifications contribute to hematologic malignancies such as myelodysplasia and leukemia. Dr. Halene, in collaboration with the Flavell laboratory in the YSM Department of Immunobiology, has developed the first efficient xenotransplantation model in humanized mice to study myelodysplasia and enable testing of novel drug treatments. Dr. Halene’s research has garnered significant attention from the international community, as evidenced by numerous invited speaking engagements, an invitation to serve as a section editor on myeloid malignancies for a major journal, and publications in top tier journals in her field. In 2015 she was presented with the Sir William Osler Young Investigator Award and in 2019 was elected a member of the Interurban Clinical Club. Dr. Halene is director of the DeLuca Center for Innovation in Hematology Research. Through generous funding from The Frederick A. DeLuca Foundation, the center has established a comprehensive biospecimen bank, awarded pilot and career development grant funding to advance cutting-edge discoveries in hematologic malignancies and classical hematologic disorders. Meet Dr. Stephanie Halene>>

Dr. Herbst is nationally recognized for his leadership and expertise in lung cancer treatment and research. He is best known for his work in developmental therapeutics and the personalized therapy of non-small cell lung cancer, in particular the process of linking genetic abnormalities of cancer cells to novel therapies. Learn more about Dr. Herbst >> Dr. Herbst’s primary mission is the enhanced integration of clinical, laboratory, and research programs. He has worked over several decades as a pioneer of personalized medicine and immunotherapy to identify biomarkers and bring novel targeted treatments and immunotherapies to patients, serving as principal investigator for numerous clinical trials testing these agents in advanced stage lung cancers. This work led to the approval of several therapies (such as gefitinib, cetuximab, bevacizumab, axitinib), which have revolutionized the field and greatly enhanced patient survival. He and his Yale colleagues were among the first to describe the PD-1/PD-L1 adaptive immune response in early phase trials and to offer trials of PD-L1 inhibitors atezolizumab and pembrolizumab to lung cancer patients. His leadership in targeted therapeutics resulted in being selected for ASCO’s plenary presentation in 2020 and 2023 and publication of results of the third-generation EGFR-inhibitor osimertinib for the treatment of resected EGFR-mutant NSCLC in the New England Journal of Medicine. In 2015 and again in 2020, his team at Yale was awarded a Lung Cancer SPORE (P50 grant) by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), which has identified new immunotherapies and mechanisms of sensitivity and resistance to EGFR targeted therapies. His work has also been funded by ASCO, AACR, the United States Department of Defense, and by an AACR/ Stand Up to Cancer Dream Team grant. His work on "umbrella” trials has galvanized the field of targeted therapy and cancer drug approvals at the FDA. Nationally, he works closely with public-private partnerships to develop large master protocol clinical studies. He was co-leader for the BATTLE-1 clinical trial program, co-leads the subsequent BATTLE-2 clinical trial program, and was the founding principal investigator (PI) of the Lung Master Protocol (Lung-MAP), a position he held for ten years. He testified on this before the House of Representatives 21st Century Cures committee and serves as a prominent figure in this area. He has served over ten years as a member of the National Academy of Medicine’s Cancer Policy Forum, for which he organized several meetings focused on policy issues in personalized medicine and tobacco control. He is now serving his second term on the National Academy of Medicine’s Cancer Policy Forum. He is currently the Vice Chair for the Southwestern Oncology Group (SWOG) Lung Committee and chair emeritus and special advisor for the Lung-MAP trial. After earning a B.S. and M.S. degree from Yale University, Dr. Herbst earned his M.D. at Cornell University Medical College and his Ph.D. in molecular cell biology at The Rockefeller University in New York City, New York. His postgraduate training included an internship and residency in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. His clinical fellowships in medicine and hematology were completed at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, respectively. Subsequently, Dr. Herbst completed a M.S. degree in clinical translational research at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Prior to his appointment at Yale, Dr. Herbst was the Barnhart Distinguished Professor and Chief of the Section of Thoracic Medical Oncology in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (UT-MDACC) in Houston, Texas. He also served as Professor in the Department of Cancer Biology and Co-Director of the Phase I Clinical Trials Program. Dr. Herbst is a highly respected clinician­ scientist who has been a champion of translational medicine for decades, recently authoring a high-profile review of the 20-year progress in lung cancer. He has authored or co-authored more than 450 publications, including peer-reviewed journal articles, abstracts, and book chapters. His work has appeared in many prominent journals, such as the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine. Work published in Nature was awarded the 2015 Herbert Pardes Clinical Research Excellence Award by the Clinical Research Forum. His abstracts have been presented at the annual meetings of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the World Conference on Lung Cancer, the Society of Nuclear Medicine Conference, and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and a member of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR), where serves as Chair of the AACR Scientific Policy and Government Affairs Committee. He has been a major proponent of efforts to promote tobacco control and regulation (including e-cigarettes), authoring multiple policy statements and leading frequent Capitol Hill briefings. In 2019, he was elected to the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) board of directors and the board of directors of the American Association of Cancer Research(AACR). He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and an elected member of the Association of American Physicians. For his lifetime achievement in scientific contributions to thoracic cancer research, Dr. Herbst was awarded the 2016 Paul A. Bunn, Jr. Scientific Award by the IASLC at their 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna, Austria. A team of Yale Cancer Center investigators led by Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, was awarded the 2018 Team Science Award from the Association for Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS) for its pioneering work in advancing our understanding of Immunotherapy. In 2020, Dr. Herbst was awarded the AACR Distinguished Public Service Award for Exceptional Leadership in Cancer Science Policy. Dr. Herbst is the recipient of the 2022 Giants of Cancer Care® award for Lung Cancer and was honored by Friends of Cancer Research in 2022 as one of their 25 scientific and advocacy leaders who, through their work and partnership, have been instrumental over the course of the last 25 years in making significant advancements for patients. Over the course of his career, Dr. Herbst has worked to bring novel therapies to the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, bringing us closer to curing this disease.

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine (Medical Oncology) at Yale School of Medicine, Director of Oncology Clinics at VA Connecticut Healthcare System and Site Director for the Yale Medical Oncology-Hematology Fellowship. My clinical and research focuses are in medical education, psycho-oncology and supportive care in cancer.

Dr. Eric Winer was appointed Director of Yale Cancer Center and President and Physician-in-Chief of Smilow Cancer Hospital Yale New Haven Health System on February 1, 2022. He is also the Alfred Gilman Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology and Deputy Dean of Cancer Research at Yale School of Medicine. An internationally renowned expert in breast cancer, Dr. Winer has led and collaborated on innumerable clinical trials that have changed the face of the disease. His work has touched almost all aspects of breast cancer and he is particularly well known for his work in HER2 positive disease. Dr. Winer has long been an advocate of building teams consisting of scientists and clinicians to accelerate progress in cancer research and care. He previously served as principal investigator of a breast cancer Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) for over a decade. Dr. Winer is a member of the Board for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. For over a decade, he served as chief scientific advisor and chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. He co-led the National Cancer Institute Breast Cancer Steering Committee from 2016-2022. Dr. Winer has published over 400 original manuscripts and mentored over 30 fellows and junior faculty. In recognition of his mentoring impact, he was the recipient of the William Silen Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award from Harvard Medical School in 2020. He has also received numerous awards for his breast cancer research, most notably the William L. McGuire Memorial Lecture Award in 2016 at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, the Gianni Bonadonna Breast Cancer Award at ASCO in 2017, the Susan G. Komen Brinker Award for Clinical Research in 2018, and the Jill Rose award from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation in 2019. Dr. Winer is an alumnus of both Yale College and Yale School of Medicine. After receiving his medical degree in 1983, he completed training in internal medicine and served as chief resident at Yale New Haven Hospital. He completed a fellowship in hematology/oncology at Duke University School of Medicine and served on the Duke faculty from 1989 to 1997. He then joined Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School where he built an internationally prominent breast cancer program. Prior to his move back to Yale in 2022, he held the Thompson Chair in Breast Cancer Research and served as chief clinical development officer, and senior vice president for medical affairs at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, as well as Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Noffar Bar, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Hematology) at Yale School of Medicine and completed her internship and residency at the Mount Sinai Hospital and her fellowship at Yale. She received her medical degree from the American Medical Program at Tel Aviv University in New York. Dr. Bar is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Society of Hematology, and the International Myeloma Society. Dr. Bar’s research is focused on multiple myeloma and other plasma cell disorders. She specializes in all treatment modalities for myeloma including CAR T-cell therapy and stem cell transplant. She received grant support through the Conquer Cancer Foundation’s Young Investigator Award for her work looking at the prevention of multiple myeloma. Dr. Bar is dedicated to improving treatments for myeloma patients through innovative clinical trials. Additionally, Dr. Bar is a medical educator and a member of the Classical Hematology Disease team at Yale. She is interested in promoting high value care for hematology patients.

Dr. Cecelia Calhoun, MD, MPHS, MBA, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Hematology) and (Hematology/Oncology) at Yale University School of Medicine, specializing in the care of individuals with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD). She also serves as the Medical Director of the Adult Sickle Cell Program at Smilow Cancer Hospital. Dr. Calhoun's research focuses on addressing educational and healthcare obstacles faced by adolescents with sickle cell disease, employing mixed methods to find effective solutions. Her career is dedicated to designing and implementing evidence-based interventions that support a successful transition from youth to adult care for individuals with sickle cell disease. As an NIH-funded investigator, she collaborates with hematology colleagues nationwide, utilizing Implementation Science methods to improve outcomes for patients with sickle cell disease across their lifespan. Dr. Calhoun's expertise and dedication make her a respected figure in the field of hematology, particularly in the realm of sickle cell disease and health equity. Her commitment to improving outcomes for individuals with sickle cell disease underscores her valuable contributions to the academic and medical community.

Dr. Hari Deshpande, Associate Professor of Medicine in the Section of Medical Oncology, cares for patients with sarcomas along with the sarcoma multidisciplinary team.Previously in practice at both the New London Cancer Center and Las Vegas Cancer Center, Dr. Deshpande also has clinical interests in sarcomas, cancers of unknown primary, and thyroid cancers. He is a member of the Head and Neck Cancer and GU cancer teams. He is the Director of the Medical Oncology Inpatient Consult service.Learn more about Dr. Deshpande>>

Dr. Francine Foss, Professor of Medicine in the Section of Medical Oncology at Yale Cancer Center, is an internationally recognized clinician and clinical researcher with expertise in adult lymphomas and in stem cell transplantation. She has developed and tested therapies that have been used to treat thousands of cancer patients, and her research has substantially impacted the field of stem cell research, benefiting patients at Yale and around the world. Dr. Foss has brought a nationally established clinical trials program to Yale Cancer Center. In her previous position at Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston, she designed, initiated, and directed multi-center national clinical trials which led to FDA approval of several novel therapies for lymphomas. One of these, Interleukin-2- Diphtheria toxin fusion protein, was the first FDA-approved fusion protein biologic drug and the first drug to be FDA approved for the treatment of T-cell lymphoma. In her laboratory work, she investigated and elucidated the mechanism by which extracorporeal photopheresis modulated antigen presenting cells, leading to a reduction in graft-vs-host disease in patients undergoing allogeneic stem cell transplant. These findings led to the initiation of two National Cancer Institute-sponsored trials to confirm these results in patients with lymphoma and myelodysplastic syndrome. Dr. Foss is a member of the Stem Cell Therapy clinical program at Smilow Cancer Hospital. Learn more about Dr. Foss>> Dr. Foss is a world expert in T cell Lymphomas. She has pioneered several novel therapies for T cell lymphomas and has been a leader in many national studies. She developed and initiated the first national registry for T cell lymphomas in the United States and is a founder and co-chairman of the T CELL Forum, the preeminent international T cell lymphoma research meeting. She is a co-founder of the United States Cutaneous Lymphoma Consortium and currently serves as its President. She has been a Director of the international T-cell Project to research treatment and biology of T-cell lymphomas and serves on the NCCN panel of experts for T-cell lymphomas. As a translational researcher in T cell Lymphomas, she currently is collaborating with a number of laboratories and scientists at Yale to identify molecular targets in T Cell Lymphoma and recently was awarded a grant through the PITCH program for the state of Connecticut to develop a promising small molecule therapeutic for a rare form of lymphoma. Dr. Foss currently leads the multi-disciplinary T-cell Lymphoma clinical team at the Smilow Cancer Center and co-directs the Cutaneous Lymphoma Program at Yale with Dr. Michael Girardi. Her clinical practice at Smilow Cancer Hospital attracts patients from around the world.

Jacquelyne Gaddy, MD, MSc, MSCR is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine (Medical Oncology) and cares for patients as part of the Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center. She is also Deputy Director of the Diversity Enhancement Program in Oncology and a member of The Center for Community Engagement and Health Equity (CEHE) within Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center. Prior to medical school she pursued a Master of Cancer Sciences at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Gaddy received her medical degree from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. She completed her residency at the University at Buffalo and while a fellow in medical oncology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, undertook a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Health Behavior and obtained a Master of Science in Clinical Research (MSCR). Dr. Gaddy has dedicated her entire postgraduate career to focusing on improving diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is committed to improving cancer care delivery for Black patients while also addressing the needs of Black, Indigenous, People of color (BIPOC) cancer care providers through an educational and investigational approach. Her primary research focus is evaluating how the social determinants of health impact cancer care delivery. She is a 2012 recipient of the Medical Student Rotation for Underrepresented Populations and a 2019 recipient of the Resident Travel Award for Underrepresented Populations from Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation. She was selected to participate in Dr. Kemi Doll’s “Get That Grant” coaching program, is Co-Director of the Oncology Summer Internship (sponsored by ASCO), and holds a 2023 ACS IRG Pilot Award for Underrepresented Minorities.

Curing hematologic cancers with precision medicine and minimal toxicity has been a multigeneration challenge and a highly prioritized work for our group at Yale. Through continual engagement with patients and their families, educational meetings and well informed decision making sessions, we help our patients navigate the field of transplantation and cellular therapy. Our multidisciplinary team while trying to harness the curative promise of cellular immunotherapy also has special focus to enhance its safety and provide long term supervision for cancer survivors. We strongly encourage our patients to learn the strengths and limitations of the existing standard of care, the knowledge of which could be applied to personalize treatment plans and foster research environment to advance the broader field.

Dr. Mike Hurwitz is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology). For over 20 years, he has specialized in treating patients with cancers of the genitourinary tract (kidney, bladder, prostate and testicular cancers) and, more recently, in using immune cell-based therapies to treat a large range of solid tumor cancers. His main research efforts are to expand the availability of trials of cell-based therapies to patients with solid tumors.

Iris Isufi, MD, is a hematologist who specializes in treating patients with lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and leukemia. Dr. Isufi provides care through treatments involving cellular therapy, which include CAR T-cell therapy and stem cell transplants. She is co-director of the CAR T-Cell Therapy Program for adults. “Cell therapies like CAR T-cell therapy are promising for diseases that haven’t responded to multiple types of treatment,” Dr. Isufi says. “It’s a recent development, but one that students in medical school are already learning about, and that’s very exciting.” The potential benefit of CAR T-cell therapy matters especially to Dr. Isufi, who grew up in Albania and sometimes accompanied her mother, a physician, on rounds at the hospital. “I saw challenges they [the doctors] were facing in trying to help people. Their determination inspired me when I was young to become a physician,” Dr. Isufi says. As she visits her cancer patients today, Dr. Isufi spends time getting to know each one so that she can provide reassurance for each person’s unique situation. “I tell them we are in this together and that I’ll do my best to help them get through it all—beginning to end,” she says. Dr. Isufi continues to check in on patients who have been in remission for many years after receiving their treatment. “My patients are very grateful, brave, and courageous, and this inspires me,” she says. Dr. Isufi is an assistant professor of hematology at Yale School of Medicine, where she also runs clinical trials in patients with lymphoma.