Ramon E. Parsons, MD, PhD, is an Icahn Scholar, Director of The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Ward-Coleman Chair in Cancer Research. He is also Director, Mount Sinai Tisch Cancer Center, Mount Sinai Health System, and Professor and Chair of the Department of Oncological Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine.

In 2017, Dr. Parsons was named Director of The Tisch Cancer Institute and Director of Mount Sinai Cancer after serving as the co-Leader of the Cancer Mechanisms program and the Deputy Director of TCI. Dr. Parsons joined the Icahn School of Medicine in 2013.

Previously, he was on the faculty of the departments of Pathology and Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. He was appointed Assistant Professor in 1995 and later became the Avon Foundation Chair for Breast Cancer Research in 2002. He was promoted to Professor in 2007 and Leader of its Breast Cancer Program at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center in 2005. Dr. Parsons is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, American Society for Clinical Investigation, and American College of Physicians. He was Chair of the AACR Special conferences committee for two terms from 2011-2017, which initiated and planned more than 75 scientific meetings on different cancer-related topics.

Dr. Parsons maintains an active laboratory and has received multiple awards for his research, including the 2011 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Outstanding Investigator Award for Breast Cancer Research and a 2017 National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award. He is internationally recognized as an expert in the fields of cancer genetics and signal transduction with an emphasis on the tumor suppressor gene PTEN.

Cardinale B. Smith, MD, PhD is a Professor with tenure in the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology and the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Chief Quality Officer for Cancer Services, Mount Sinai Health System. She is a medical oncologist and palliative care physician whose clinical practice is focused on lung cancer and palliative care. Her research interests focus on doctor-patient communication, evaluating treatment disparities in cancer care, determinants of cancer patients’ quality of care, characterizing barriers to optimal cancer and palliative care and developing approaches to eliminating those barriers among racial and ethnic minorities. Dr. Smith is a 2013 recipient of a mentored research scholar grant from the American Cancer Society to evaluate determinants of disparities in the utilization of palliative care among patients with lung cancer. She was a co-investigator on a Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute grant to teach and enable goals of care conversations among oncologists. Additionally, she is the recipient Sojourn’s Scholar Leadership Grant and an R01 grant, extremely competitive federal funding, from the National Cancer Institute to evaluate the role of implicit bias among oncologists on minority cancer patient outcomes. Dr. Smith has had numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals, and in 2015 was named one of the Top 40 Inspirational Leaders under 40 by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.