


We are thrilled to present our Keynote Speaker!
Wednesday, June 21st 8:00 am
An Emmy Award-winning journalist and celebrated TED speaker, Suleika Jaouad is the author of the instant New York Times bestselling memoir Between Two Kingdoms, which recounts her odyssey of healing and self-discovery after a diagnosis of leukemia at the age of twenty-two and given only a 35% chance of survival.
The Program Planning Committee is hard at work finalizing the program. Here’s a few of the amazing topics and speakers that will be featured throughout our plenary sessions. Stay tuned for more information in the next few weeks!
Opening Plenary Session: Global Burden of Cancer in Adolescents and Young Adults

Lauren Lux, MSW, LCSW | Session Co-Chair
UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center
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Lauren directs the AYA Oncology Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work as Program Director focuses on patient care, psychosocial research, programming, provider education, quality improvement, and advocacy. Along with her fabulous partners, she leads efforts to improve care for AYAs around the state of North Carolina and is involved in the advancement of the AYA oncology field in the United States. She has worked as a clinical social worker in the field of oncology throughout her career and her clinical practice and program work is inspired and informed by the incredible young people she meets every day.

Michael Roth, M.D. | Session Co-Chair
MD Anderson Cancer Center
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Dr. Michael Roth is a pediatric oncologist and AYA research investigator at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. His research focuses on improving care and outcomes for children, adolescents and young adults diagnosed with cancer with a specific interest in improving the long-term health, quality of life and survival for these patients. He is the co-director of the AYA Program and director of the Childhood Cancer Survivorship Program at MD Anderson. In addition he is the current chair of the AYA Oncology Discipline Committee in the Children’s Oncology Group and he leads the AYA Responsible Investigators Network, whose mission is to optimize enrollment of AYAs onto cancer clinical trials.

Elysia Marie Alvarez, M.D., M.P.H.
UC Davis
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Dr. Alvarez is a pediatric hematologist/oncologist at the University of California Davis School of Medicine. She received her medical degree from the University of California Irvine School of Medicine and Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Alvarez provides care to children, adolescents and young adults with cancer. She has a special clinic interest and expertise in adolescent and young adult patients with solid tumors. She is also the co-leader of the Pediatric, Adolescent, and Young Adult Comprehensive Sarcoma Clinic at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Alvarez’s research focuses on investigating factors that impact health outcomes in adolescent and young adult patients with cancer both in the United States and globally. She is currently focused on identifying barriers to care of adolescent and young adult patients in Latin America and developing strategies to improve outcomes in this patient population. She believes that all children, adolescents and young adults deserve access to high quality specialized care to treat their cancer regardless of where they are from.
Mental Health in AYAs: The Impact of Cancer on Life and the Impact of Life on Cancer

Brad Zebrack, PhD, MSW, MPH | Session Co-Chair
University of Michigan

Brynn Fowler, MPH | Session Co-Chair
Northwestern University

Nina Jackson Levin, MSW
University of Michigan
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Brad Zebrack, PhD, MSW, MPH is a Professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work and member of the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences. He is a fellow to the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR), the American Psychosocial Oncology Society (APOS), and the Association for Oncology Social Work (AOSW). Dr. Zebrack has clinical social work experience in both pediatric and adult oncology, and also has been involved in the development and evaluation of peer support programs for adolescent and young adult cancer survivors. His research on quality of life and cancer survivorship over the past 20 years has been supported by the National Cancer Institute (K07, R03, R01), the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), and HopeLab Inc. Brad is also a long-term survivor of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, diagnosed in 1985 at the age of 25. In 1988-1989, Brad and his wife Joanne embarked on and completed a one-year, 11,000-mile bicycle tour around the perimeter of the United States to promote cancer survivorship.
[2:07 PM] Tori Swinehart
Nina Jackson Levin:

Ursula Sansom-Daly, PhD
UNSW Sydney
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Brynn Fowler, MPH is the AYA Program Manager at Northwestern Medicine and Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, IL. Brynn received her master’s in public health at the University of Utah where she worked with researchers to investigate AYA medication adherence and program development. Brynn has been involved in various capacities in AYA oncology for 9 years now in both Utah and Illinois, ranging from research to program development and implementation. Brynn has a deep passion for working with AYAs and loves all of the different hats she gets to wear in her work. Brynn lives in Chicago, IL with her husband and two small children.
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Nina Jackson Levin, MSW (she/her) is National Cancer Institute T32 Research Fellow at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, and is expected to complete her PhD in The Joint Program in Social Work and Social Science (Anthropology) at the University of Michigan in May 2023. Her research explores sexual and reproductive health care among adolescents and young adults with cancer whose fertility is affected by treatment. In particular, she is interested in health disparities among AYAs from diverse and marginalized backgrounds, such as sexual and gender minority patients. Jackson Levin uses multimedia ethnographic methods to better understand young people’s experiences of cancer in order to improve upon service delivery.
The Science and the Art of Resilience:
Lessons Learned From AYA patients, Clinicians, and Communities

Pamela Simon, MSN, CPNP, CPON | Session Chair
Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford

Abby Rosenberg, MD
Seattle Children's Research Institute
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Abby R. Rosenberg, MD, MS, MA, is the Chief of Pediatric Palliative Care at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Director of Pediatric Palliative Care at Boston Children’s Hospital, and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. She received her MD from Stanford University and completed her pediatrics residency and hematology/oncology fellowship training at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital. Her additional training includes a Master of Science in Clinical Research Methods and a Master of Arts in Bioethics, both from the University of Washington. Prior to joining the team at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s, she held the Aldarra Endowed Chair for Survivorship and Outcomes Research at Seattle Children’s and directed both the Palliative Care and Resilience Program at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and the Pediatrics section at the Cambia Palliative Care Center of Excellence at the University of Washington. Her national leadership positions have included the Chair of the American Society of Clinical Oncology Ethics committee, the Chair of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine Scientific Program committee, the Chair of the American Cancer Society’s standing peer-review section for palliative care and outcomes science, and the chair of the Children’s Oncology Group Patient-Reported Outcomes committee.
Dr. Rosenberg’s scholarship is focused on promoting the quality of life of children, adolescents, and young adults with serious illness. Specifically, she and her team endeavor to create evidence-based programs to promote patient and family resilience, in turn enabling both children and families to thrive. Dr. Rosenberg has been continuously funded by the NIH for her entire career, and currently holds multiple independent grants to test and disseminate her novel resilience-coaching program. She has published over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts related to pediatric and AYA palliative care, supportive oncology, and survivorship, and has been an invited speaker at over 80 national and international meetings. She has received scientific recognition awards from organizations such as the American Cancer Society, the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO, the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, the National Palliative Care Research Center, the Cambia Health Foundation, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations. In 2022, she received the Trish Green Lifetime Achievement Award for Quality of Life research from the American Cancer Society.
Finally, Dr. Rosenberg is dedicated to training the next generation of survivorship and outcomes researchers. She has been a leader for multiple NIH-sponsored training grants and programs. Her mentoring mission is to support the development of women and people who have been historically marginalized trainees in science. In the past 5 years, 100% of her mentees successfully secured level-appropriate extramural funding and academic positions for career their development. Dr. Rosenberg is the recipient of the 2021 “Excellence in Mentoring Women” award from the University of Washington.
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Marginalized and Minoritized: Disparities and Unequal Treatment in AYA Oncology

Michael Roth, M.D. | Session Co-Chair
MD Anderson Cancer Center
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Dr. Michael Roth is a pediatric oncologist and AYA research investigator at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. His research focuses on improving care and outcomes for children, adolescents and young adults diagnosed with cancer with a specific interest in improving the long-term health, quality of life and survival for these patients. He is the co-director of the AYA Program and director of the Childhood Cancer Survivorship Program at MD Anderson. In addition he is the current chair of the AYA Oncology Discipline Committee in the Children’s Oncology Group and he leads the AYA Responsible Investigators Network, whose mission is to optimize enrollment of AYAs onto cancer clinical trials.

Christabel K. Cheung, PhD, MSW | Session Co-Chair
University of Maryland, School of Social Work
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Christabel Cheungs: Christabel K. Cheung, PhD, MSW is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work and Member of the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Cheung’s research focuses on the psychosocial issues of cancer survivorship among adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer patients (diagnosed between ages 15-39 years) in the domains of disparities and social determinants of health and mental health, financial hardship and disability, antiracist and gender-affirming patient engagement, and embodied research methods. As a social and behavioral scientist in pursuit of these interests, she has led research projects as principal investigator and co-investigator and contributed to numerous cancer care optimization, patient education, and advocacy initiatives aimed at improving health and behavioral mental health outcomes. As an embodied BIPOC AYA patient scientist and two-time survivor of cancer in the AYA years (Hodgkin’s lymphoma), she is recognized for writing one of the first cancer blogs advocating for racially minoritized young adult patients, JadeGangster.com. She holds a Bachelor of Journalism from University of Missouri-Columbia, a Master of Social Welfare from University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in Social Welfare from University of California, Los Angeles.
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Reginald Tucker-Seeley MA, ScM, ScD
ZERO, the End of Prostate Cancer

Kimberly Miller, PhD, MPH
Keck School of Medicine of USC
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Kimberly Miller, PhD, MPH is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences and Department of Dermatology at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. Her research focuses on understanding the health behaviors, healthcare engagement, and cancer-related health disparities of children, adolescents, and young adult cancer survivors. She is leading two National Cancer Institute-funded R01 studies in this area. With Drs. David Freyer (Children’s Hospital Los Angeles) and Joel Milam (University of California, Irvine), she is co-director of the Center for Young Adult Cancer Survivorship Research, an interdisciplinary research collaborative whose mission is to study and improve the health outcomes of young adult cancer survivors.

Court Simmons
Patient & Survivor

Jay Carter
Patient & Survivor
Changing Epidemiology of AYA Cancer

Susan K. Parsons, MD, MRP | Session Chair
Tufts Medical Center
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Dr. Susan Parsons’ career has combined formal graduate training in health economics and planning, with extensive clinical training and experience in hematology/oncology, and cancer survivorship. Dr. Parsons graduated from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons with top honors in pediatrics. She completed a residency and chief residency at Boston Children’s Hospital, followed by a fellowship in pediatric hematology/oncology at the Boston Children’s/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Her research has focused on strategies to improve the patient’s experience with healthcare, reduce regimen-related toxicity, and optimize functioning. Nationally, she serves as a member of the Children’s Oncology Group’s (COG) Steering Committee for Hodgkin Lymphoma (HL) and member of the study team of three frontline clinical trials. In the recently completed high risk pediatric study (AHOD 1331), she led an embedded study on chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy and co-leads a cost effectiveness analysis. In two other trials, she serves as the Quality of Life chair, examining the trajectory of health-related quality of life, symptom burden, and financial toxicity, associated with novel therapy. In 2019 Dr. Parsons was appointed chair of cancer care delivery research (CCDR) for COG and has served as a member of the NCI’s Scientific Steering for CCDR for almost seven years. Within her own research, she is co-founder of the HoLISTIC Consortium (Hodgkin Lymphoma International Study for Individual Care) with the goal of enhancing patient-provider communication on treatment trade-offs in HL. Dr. Parsons is a Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine, Director of the Center for Health Solutions within the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies, and founding Medical Director of the Reid R. Sacco AYA Cancer Program at Tufts Medical Center, providing survivorship care to AYA-aged survivors diagnosed in childhood, adolescence or young adulthood.

Annalynn Williams, PhD
University of Rochester Medical Center
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Dr. Williams is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery, Division of Supportive Care in Cancer at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Dr. Williams completed her PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Rochester and a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Pediatric Cancer Control and Survivorship at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Dr. Williams’ research is focused on treatment-related toxicities and late effects among survivors of pediatric, adolescent, and young adult cancer. Specifically, cancer-related neuropsychological and psychosocial sequelae, their underlying mechanisms, and effective interventions. Her current NCI funded research examines accelerated physiologic and biologic aging as an underlying molecular mechanism by which cancer-related sequelae arise in survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma, the most common cancer diagnosed in adolescents. This research provides critical information to help us exploit these pathways to design targeted interventions among high-risk subgroups to mitigate or prevent neurocognitive and psychosocial sequelae.

Dr. Ugai, MD, PhD
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
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Dr. Ugai, MD, PhD is faculty member at Harvard University and a physician epidemiologist with expertise in pathology, clinical oncology, cancer epidemiology, and molecular epidemiology. His current research focuses on evaluating risk factors and disease burden of early-onset cancers, incidence of which has increased worldwide for unknown reasons (Ugai et al. Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology). Another research focus is investigating tissue-based cancer biomarkers, including immune and microbial characteristics of cancer, using large-scale-population studies. Dr. Ugai is now a chair of Cancer Spectrum Working Group and a co-leader of Molecular Pathological Epidemiology Working Group at Harvard-affiliated institutions. Dr. Ugai has also taken a leadership role in several global collaborative projects in the epidemiological consortium, including the Genetics and Epidemiology of Colorectal Cancer Consortium (GECCO).
Targeted Therapies

Joseph M. Flynn, DO, MPH, FACP | Session Chair
Norton Cancer Institute
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Dr. Joseph M. Flynn, DO, MPH, FACP, Chief Administrative Officer, Norton Medical Group and Physician-in-Chief, Norton Cancer Institute (a part of Norton Healthcare, Louisville, Kentucky).
Dr. Flynn served in several capacities with Ohio State University prior to accepting the lead role with Norton Cancer Institute, including co-director, division of hematology; medical director, James Cancer Network, Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute; and associate professor of medicine, School of Public Health.
Dr. Flynn earned his undergraduate degree from Skidmore College, and an MBA from Babson College. He is a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and he received a master of public health degree from Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He has been extremely active in community education on a wide variety of cancer related topics, and has remained a dedicated advocate in the study of adolescent and young adult cancers and the impact. Dr. Flynn has contributed to more than 100 medical publications.

Sameek Roychowdhury, MD, PhD
The Ohio State University
Global Advances in AYA

Peter Orchard, Chief Executive Officer | Session Co-Chair
CanTeen, Australia
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Peter is the CEO of Canteen, an Australian not-for-profit organisation that provides free and tailored support to young people aged 12 – 25 years, who are impacted by cancer. Peter has been with Canteen since 2012.
Peter is continually struck by the sense of possibility and vulnerability that can be present during adolescence and early adulthood. This has inspired him to work with young people for over 30 years across across homelessness, mental health, community health, and now cancer. He was Deputy CEO at headspace – national youth mental health foundation and then, as a Director at Australian Healthcare Associates, he undertook evaluations of federal and state initiatives across organ and tissue donation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, mental health, disaster recovery and drug and alcohol.

Nick Laing, Chief Executive Officer | Session Co-Chair
CanTeen, Aotearoa