SSO’s Career Catalyst Mentorship Program (CCMP) provides support and development opportunities for up-and-coming, mid-career surgical oncologists with leadership potential.
2025 CCMP Recipients
In 2025, the program’s focus is on “Surgeons Leading Outside the OR” allowing recipients to attend SSO 2025 and participate in a week-long observership with a US-based SSO member mentor post-meeting. Participants and mentors were matched based on shared professional and scientific interests.
Zahraa AlHilli, MD, MBA, FACS, FRCSI is a Staff Breast Surgeon and Associate Professor of Surgery at Cleveland Clinic, Ohio. She is the Interim Director of the Breast Center and the Co-Director of the Comprehensive Breast Program. She received her medical degree from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 2004. She completed her General Surgery residency in Dublin, Ireland in 2014 and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. During her residency she was also awarded a Doctorate in Medicine by research and a Masters in Medical Education. She completed a Breast Surgical Oncology Fellowship at Mayo Clinic in 2015 and an Endocrine Surgery fellowship also at Mayo Clinic in 2016. In 2023, she graduated with an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Natasha Rueth, MD, MS, FACS was born and raised in rural Wisconsin and had no intention of entering medicine until halfway through her psychology degree at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. It was in a statistics class that she discovered the way science, critical thinking, and data combine to provide answers that impact patient’s lives. Dr. Rueth remembers the moment clearly, and that was the start of her career in medicine. She attended the University of Minnesota for medical school as well as general surgery residency. In her years as a resident, she earned a master’s degree in clinical research with several projects focused on clinical outcomes data and also learned the joy of international medicine; she was fortunate enough to travel to Honduras twice on surgical mission trips. After finishing general surgery residency, Dr. Rueth spent two years in Houston at MD Anderson Cancer Center, earning one of the earliest official board certifications in Complex General Surgical Oncology. She returned to Minnesota and practiced general surgical oncology with Allina Healthcare System, where she took on various leadership roles until becoming Deputy Director of Allina Health Cancer Institute. Seeking “changes in latitude, changes in attitude” (Jimmy Buffett), she left her position with Allina Health, where was honored to be named a “Top Doctor” in the state by Minnesota Monthly Magazine annually, to join Memorial Healthcare System in South Broward County, Florida as the Chief of Breast Cancer Services in June 2024.
Emmanuel (Manny) Gabriel, MD, PhD, FACS, FSSO is an associate professor at Mayo Clinic in Florida. Clinically, he specializes in breast cancer, cutaneous oncology, and regional therapies. He is a previously NIH funded KL2 investigator and working towards R01 level funding. His basic science and translational research include novel approaches to drug delivery and tumor vessel imaging. He runs several investigator-initiated trials that complement his research interest in real-time human vessel imaging. He has had prior engagements with the Society of Surgical Oncology, including serving on the melanoma disease site work group, the constitution and bylaws committee, and the sustainable surgery task force. He also participated in the SSO/JSGS Observership in Japan in 2018. He is very appreciative to the SSO for participating in the catalyst program and is looking forward to the year-long program.
Dr. Sean Dineen, MD, MHPE is an Associate Member of the Department of Gastrointestinal Oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center. Dr. Dineen has a particular interest in the treatment of patients with metastatic disease, including carcinomatosis. In particular, he focuses on patients that have developed peritoneal spread of disease and the application of cytoreductive surgery and heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy (CRS/HIPEC) in the treatment of this advanced process. Dr. Dineen’s research focuses on identifying how the tumor and the local environment interact to promote metastatic disease. Dr. Dineen is a native of Lexington, KY. He earned his medical degree from the University of Louisville. He completed residency in general surgery at UT Southwestern in Dallas, which included a research fellowship focused on the tumor microenvironment. He subsequently completed a fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he earned the Clinical Excellence award from the Department of Surgery. Dr. Dineen has been at Moffitt Cancer Center since 2017. He is an advocate for education and is the Program Director for the Complex General Surgical Oncology (CGSO) Fellowship Program. He is also the chair of the Society for Surgical Oncology Program Director Committee.
David Kwon, MD, FACS, FSSO, is the Physician in Charge of the Brigitte Harris Cancer Pavilion within Henry Ford Health Cancer, Division Head of Surgical Oncology in the Department of Surgery, and the Brigitte Harris Endowed Chair for Pancreas Cancer. In 2021, he led the opening of a new 187,000 square foot outpatient flagship cancer center that serves as the anchor for world-class cancer care provided throughout 11 HFH Cancer locations. Dr. Kwon provides clinical leadership for operations of an integrated, multidisciplinary, outpatient cancer center that generates $300MM annual gross revenue and is comprised of more than 120 cancer providers and 350 employees within 30 departments and 16 disease-specific multidisciplinary cancer clinics. Dr. Kwon has been instrumental in setting the strategic vision and aligning organizational goals to foster a culture of excellence within Henry Ford Health Cancer Service Line and will serve as one of the cancer leads of the joint venture between Henry Ford and Ascension’s southeast Michigan and Genesys healthcare facilities, enabling the newly combined organization to make a dramatic impact on the cancer care of the communities it serves – improving outcomes, access and experience; prioritizing value-based care and partnering to advance innovation, academic medicine and advanced, complex care.
In his clinical practice, Dr. Kwon established the Henry Ford Pancreas Cancer Center in 2018 with the goal of refining future personalized pancreas cancer detection and treatment protocols. Since its inception, the center has received over $38 million in philanthropic support and secured more than $11 million in federal and foundation funding. The pancreas program has been recognized as a center of excellence by the National Pancreas Foundation and was recently selected by the Lustgarten Foundation to participate in the Alliance for Research and Patient Care. The pancreas program has grown to over 25 translational team members to advance groundbreaking research.
Dr. Georgios V. Georgakis, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Surgery at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University and a Clinical and Research Member of the Stony Brook Cancer Center. Dr. Georgakis specializes in hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery, advanced robotic surgery, and innovative cancer treatments such as pressurized intraperitoneal aerosol chemotherapy (PIPAC).
He has advanced the use of robotic surgery in complex hepatopancreatobiliary procedures. His work emphasizes reducing patient recovery time and improving surgical outcomes. Additionally, he has championed novel cancer therapies, including PIPAC, offering new treatment avenues for patients with advanced abdominal malignancies.
Dr. Georgakis completed his MD at the University of Athens and his PhD focused on the PI3K-AKT-mTOR pathway in Hodgkin’s lymphoma. His extensive training includes a fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He is an active member of leading national and international societies and has authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, solidifying his role as a thought leader in surgical innovation and oncology.
Laleh Melstrom, MD, MS, is an Associate Professor of Surgery and Immuno-Oncology and Chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology at City of Hope National Medical Center. She received her undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University and MD from Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. Dr. Melstrom went on to complete her general surgery residency at Northwestern University in Chicago in 2010. During this time, she earned a master’s degree in the Science of Clinical Investigation (2005-2007) at Northwestern University where she also spent 2 years studying pancreatic cancer biology. Upon completion of residency, Dr. Melstrom completed a Surgical Oncology Fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. She then was an Assistant Professor in Surgery at Rutgers University from 2012-2015. She was recruited to City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, CA in 2015 as a liver and pancreas surgeon and scientist studying new therapies in colorectal and pancreatic cancers. She has coauthored over 150 peer-reviewed publications, chapters and reviews/editorials in liver and pancreatic cancers. Dr. Melstrom has been NIH funded and has academic interests in telehealth and RNA methylation. She is also certified in robotic surgery and specializes in the treatment of cancers of the liver and pancreas, and has grown the division to over 20 fellowship trained surgical oncologists.
Miral Sadaria Grandhi, MD, FACS, FSSO is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Rutgers Cancer Institute and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and she currently serves at the Director of Hepatobiliary Surgery and the Program Director of the Complex General Surgical Oncology Fellowship Program at Rutgers Cancer Institute. Dr. Grandhi grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana where she attended medical school at the Indiana University School of Medicine. She went on to train in the General Surgery Residency Program at the University of Colorado. She completed her Complex General Surgical Oncology Fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and joined the Rutgers Cancer Institute Division of Surgical Oncology upon completing fellowship. Her clinical expertise lies in complex hepato-pancreato-biliary (HPB) surgery, and her academic interests lie in surgical education and quality improvement.
2024 CCMP Recipients
Dr. Kamran Idrees is the Chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology and Endocrine Surgery. He is also Director of Pancreas and GI Surgical Oncology at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. After completing his general surgery training at University of Alabama at Birmingham, he finished a clinical fellowship in surgical oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where he was trained in regional perfusion treatments including Heated Intra-Peritoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC) and Isolated Limb Infusion (ILI). He also carried out a research fellowship in colorectal cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in addition to a Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Surgery clinical fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis. He is certified by the American Board of Surgery and performs complex, minimally invasive (robotic and laparoscopic) surgeries.
Dr. Idrees is a member and has held leadership roles in various national and international societies including Society of Surgical Oncology, Americas Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association, International Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association and Association of Academic Surgeons. He is on the editorial board of Annals of Surgical Oncology and Surgical Oncology Insight.
Dr. Amanda Kirane, MD, PhD-c, FACS, FSSO, is the Director of Cutaneous Surgical Oncology and, as the John and Marva Warnock Scholar, is Principal Investigator of a robust basic and translational immunology laboratory at Stanford University. She completed her undergraduate education at the University of Texas, B.A. in Biochemistry, followed by general surgery residency at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and clinical fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Kirane completed her post-doctoral research fellowship in cancer biology in the laboratory of Rolf Brekken at the Hamon Center for Therapeutic Oncology and has recently qualified for matriculation from University of California Davis, PhD in Immunology in 2024 from the laboratory of Emanual Maverakis. She has served as PI and Co-I of multiple clinical and translational studies of novel immunotherapy approaches in melanoma and her benchwork focuses on complex 3D cellular modeling of tumor immune evasion and dormancy, precision biomarker assay innovation, and the role of myeloid cell targeting in overcoming checkpoint failure. She currently holds the ASCO Women Who Conquer Cancer Development Award for her first in class trial of neoadjuvant oncolytic virus therapy in high-risk primary melanoma.
Ugwuji N. Maduekwe, MD, MMSc, MPH, FACS, is an Associate Professor and Director of Regional Therapies in the Division of Surgical Oncology, Department of Surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin and the Associate Dean and Deputy Director of the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment, a role in which she is focused on supporting actionable projects focused on making Wisconsin the healthiest state. She is also the co-director of the Advancing Cancer Equity in Surgery research collaborative. Her clinical focus is on peritoneal surface malignancies and upper GI cancers, while her research focuses on how variations in patterns of surgical oncologic care in gastrointestinal malignancies lead to health inequities. Dr. Maduekwe has an undergraduate degree in molecular and cellular biology from the University of Texas at Dallas, underwent medical training at Harvard Medical School, general surgery residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Complex General Surgical Oncology fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Jennifer Plichta is an Associate Professor of Surgery & Population Health Sciences at Duke University. She joined Duke in 2016 and currently serves as the Director of the Breast Risk Assessment Clinic in the Duke Cancer Institute, where she cares for patients with breast cancer, benign breast problems, and those with an increased risk of breast cancer. She also serves as the Co-Director for the Clinical Cancer Genetics Program. Her clinical interests include establishing routine breast cancer risk assessment for women and creating personalized management strategies for those found to be “high risk”.
Dr. Plichta’s research focuses on identifying and managing women with risk factors for breast cancer, including those with genetic mutations, such as BRCA, those with abnormal breast biopsies, and those with a family history of breast cancer. She is also studying how breast cancer staging can be used to improve patient care and education, and she is currently a BIRCWH (Duke K12) scholar.
However, her dedication to breast cancer extends beyond her clinical and research interests, as she also enjoys educating others about breast cancer. Currently, she is the Program Director for the Duke Breast Surgical Oncology Fellowship, and she is the creator and primary coordinator of Duke’s free, annual breast education day for the community, “What’s best for breasts?”.
Dr. Reddy is an Associate Professor in surgical oncology, with interests in both surgical education, and also a primary surgical focus in treating those with pancreatic cancer. He is the Program Director for a Complex General Surgical Oncology fellowship, while also serving as the lead for a surgical oncology research fellowship program. Within the space of surgery, his clinical and academic direction is optimizing treatment of patients with borderline resectable pancreatic cancer. This has culminated into rewarding collaborations within the Marvin and Concetta Greenberg Pancreatic Cancer Institute, to which he was named Co-Director in 2019.
Multidisciplinary care and collaboration within the institute has resulted in multiple grant funding opportunities for his group, most notably in the space of modulation of the pancreatic stroma, and the impact on the tumor microenvironment. Dr. Reddy has led his clinical pancreas team in developing trials utilizing unique protocols in delivering chemotherapy and radiation in sequence and has worked with radiation oncologists in moving forward the pulsed-low dose radiation and ablative treatment options. Dr. Reddy has spoken regionally, nationally, and internationally about utilizing neoadjuvant therapies in these circumstances.
Franz O. Smith, MD, MAcM, FACS, is a Surgical Oncologist and Associate Professor of Surgery at RWJ BarnabasHealth Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center, Livingston, New Jersey. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica. He completed residency at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in 2011. During residency he pursued the fellowship in Surgical Oncology in Tumor Immunotherapy and Surgical Oncology at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda Maryland. The focus of his research was on cell-based immunotherapies for melanoma, kidney cancer and other solid organ malignancies.
Dr. Smith did his fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Institute-University of South Florida, Tampa Florida. He is board certified in both General Surgery and Complex General Surgical Oncology. His clinical interests are in Sarcoma, Melanoma, Breast, Gastrointestinal cancers, and Patient Safety and Quality Improvement. In 2013, he returned to Cooperman Barnabas to practice surgical oncology, and was promoted to Program Director General Surgery residency in 2016.
He earned masters’ degrees in Academic Medicine (MAcM) from the University of Southern California-Keck School of Medicine, and Masters of Applied Science (MAS) in Patient Safety and Healthcare Quality from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Smith has developed and delivered workshops on adult learning principles, remediating the learner in difficulty, patient safety and quality improvement, curriculum development, leadership and team development.
He is a board member of the Association of Program Directors in Surgery, and has held memberships on the subcommittees for Diversity, Inclusion and Equity for the Association of Academic Surgery and Association of Program Directors in Surgery. In 2019, he was appointed as the Chief Academic Officer at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center; and Associate Dean at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in 2021.
Dr. Smith is also a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the Society of Surgical Oncology. He is completing his PhD in Health Professions Education at Massachusetts General Institute of Health Professions.
Mediget Teshome MD, MPH, FACS, is currently an Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery, Section Chief of Breast Surgery and Director of Breast Health at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) within the Department of Surgery, Division of Surgical Oncology. She is committed to advancing the care of women and men with breast cancer through high quality patient care, collaborative clinical research, education, career development, and promoting equity in health care and society.
Dr. Teshome received her undergraduate education at UCLA and Medical Degree at the University of Michigan Medical School. She graduated from the Stanford General Surgery Residency Program during which she also obtained an MPH degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. She then completed a Breast Surgical Oncology Fellowship at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where she joined the faculty until transitioning to UCLA in January 2024.
As a faculty member at MD Anderson, Dr. Teshome served in several leadership roles including the Program Director for the Breast Surgical Oncology Fellowship Program, Division of Surgery Professionalism Ambassador, Faculty Senator for the Department of Breast Surgical Oncology and Chair of the Mid-Career Faculty Committee.
She currently contributes to the SSO as the Vice Chair of the Breast Fellowship Program Directors Committee and a member of both the SSO Women in Cancer Surgery Working Group and Constitution and Bylaws Committee. She also is the Vice Chair for the American Society of Breast Surgeons Annual Meeting Scientific Committee and Chair of the Education Committee for the American College of Surgeons Cancer Surgery Standards Program.
Dr. Woodworth is an Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery with Keck Medicine of USC and serves as Director of Breast Health USC & Henry Mayo Hospital /Santa Clarita Valley. She has expertise in the high-risk breast cancer population, risk reduction and early detection of breast cancer and is certified in cancer genetic and risk assessment. She has worked tirelessly in educating her local community, creating, and continuing a “Girl Talk” series educating women about health issues pertinent to them. She has received grants in community education, navigation, and early detection of breast cancer. Dr. Woodworth has been a featured speaker on the national and local level for breast cancer detection, prevention and treatment. She currently serves on the American Cancer Society National Breast Cancer Roundtable. She completed her Breast Surgical Oncology Fellowship at Keck Medicine of USC/Hoag Hospital with a focus in Oncoplastics which she continues to teach to her current fellows, as well as, nationally.