Nigel Deacon is the co-founder of Ocumel Canada, an initiative of Save Your Skin Foundation in Canada. He retired from a career in public education in 2012 when he was diagnosed with metastatic ocular melanoma. He now devotes his time to improving outcomes for Canadian OM patients. Ocumel Canada was founded in January 2019 and you can find out more at ocumelcanada.ca. Nigel also is a member of the CURE OM Steering Committee.

Dr. Sara Selig is the Co-Founder and Director of the MRF’s CURE OM initiative. Sara initially became involved with the OM community when her husband, Gregg, was diagnosed with the disease in 2006, at the age of 34, when Sara was a fourth year medical student. At the time of Gregg’s diagnosis, Gregg and Sara became fierce advocates for Gregg’s care and the entire OM community as well. Sara continues to be a passionate advocate for the ocular melanoma field—working to accelerate research, promote collaboration, and support patients and caregivers through her leadership of the CURE OM initiative. She is currently Associate Physician in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Basil K. Williams Jr., MD is an ocular oncologist and vitreoretinal surgeon at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, where he completed his ophthalmology residency and vitreoretinal surgery fellowship and served as a chief resident and co-director of ocular trauma. During this time, he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society and won the Fellow of the Year Award. He completed an additional fellowship in ocular oncology at Wills Eye Hospital, where he received the William Tasman Outstanding Fellow Teaching Award. He grew up in the Bronx, NY and received his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Yale University. He then attended The Chicago Medical School where he was elected to the Gold Humanism Honor Society. Prior to joining Bascom Palmer, he was the Director of Ocular Oncology at the University of Cincinnati and held the Mary Knight Asbury Endowed Chair of Ocular Oncology.  

Dr. Patel is an Associate Professor, Fellowship Program Director, and Director of the Uveal Melanoma Program in the Department of Melanoma Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center.  She is also Chair of the SWOG Melanoma Committee.

In these roles, she serves as lead physician for the uveal melanoma trials at MD Anderson including numerous investigator-initiated and sponsored clinical trials as well as Project 3 Co-Leader for the Melanoma SPORE.  She is also national Study Chair of SWOG S1801 and S1404 trials, the largest melanoma trials investigating neoadjuvant and adjuvant checkpoint blockade for cutaneous melanoma.

She has authored over 88 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters, more than 28 as first or senior author.  Her grant work focuses on translational research, for which she has received at least 8 independent intramural and extramural funding awards as PI from the NIH/NCI, DOD, Melanoma SPORE, and MD Anderson Institutional Research Grants and Multidisciplinary Research Program award.  The goals of Dr. Patel’s work are to translate the findings into effective monitoring and therapeutic strategies for patients with melanoma. 

Dr. Eric Wehrenberg-Klee is an interventional radiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA where he is the Director of the Center for Image-Guided Cancer Therapy, as well as an Assistant Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School.  He is the primary investigator on multiple investigator initiated and industry sponsored trials evaluating the role of minimally invasive interventional procedures for the treatment of cancer.  His laboratory work focus on the immune response to local tumor therapies and their synergy with checkpoint inhibition and is sponsored by grant funding from the National Cancer Institute.  

Dr. Steven Katz joined TriSalus in 2018 as Chief Medical Advisor and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Boards. In September 2020, Steven became the first Chief Medical Officer of TriSalus. Previously, as a full-time academic surgical oncologist, he developed a reputation as a leader in solid tumor immunotherapy, cellular therapeutics, cancer biology, liver immunology and execution of immunotherapy clinical trials. His laboratory has focused on studying liver immunosuppressive cells and strategies for enabling immunotherapy in liver tumors. He also currently serves as Associate Professor of Surgery at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. His clinical expertise is in surgical therapy and multi-disciplinary management of liver tumors, pancreas tumors, sarcoma and melanoma. 

Dr. Elena Hawryluk is a board-certified Dermatologist and Pediatric Dermatologist, and Associate Professor of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School, where she serves as the Faculty Director of Pediatric Dermatology for the Harvard Combined Dermatology Residency Program. Dr. Hawryluk cares for patients at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children's Hospital, and has a clinical and research interest in pigmented lesions and melanoma in the pediatric population. She has numerous publications and national and international invited presentations on the care of children with congenital nevi, pigmented lesions, and melanoma. 

Dr. Seynnaeve received her Bachelor of Science degree from University of Pittsburgh, graduating summa cum laude with a major in molecular biology and minor in chemistry in 2007. She received her Medical Degree from West Virginia University School of Medicine in 2011 having earned accolades including Alpha Omega Alpha and the Ferrari Pediatrics Scholar Award.  Dr. Seynnaeve then completed her Pediatric Residency training at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh from 2011 to 2014 having earned the UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Pediatric Residency Foundation Scholarship.  She pursued subspecialty training in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, completing her fellowship in 2017.  She obtained a Masters of Science Degree in Clinical Research at the University of Pittsburgh during her fellowship and also completed a post-doctoral T32 training program in skin biology and cancer at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute while conducting pediatric melanoma research, for which she also earned a CureRock Trainee Research Award.  Dr. Seynnaeve joined the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology (PHO) as an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh in 2017.

Dr. Seynnaeve cares for children with a broad array of hematology and oncology diagnoses, though has a specific clinical interest and expertise in pediatric melanoma. She is Clinical Director of the Pediatric Melanoma Center which she established as a multidisciplinary team approach at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh to care for patients diagnosed with melanoma and associated melanocytic tumors.  She is active in collaborative research serving as Principal Investigator the first pediatric melanoma clinical trial to open at UPMC which also serves as the first US site to offer patient enrollment for an international, multicenter study.  She is also active in medical education serving as the Associate Fellowship Program Director of the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology fellowship program.

Molly Vocino, MSW, LCSW, is an oncology social worker at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center of Jefferson Health in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She completed her graduated studies in social work at the University of Pennsylvania in 2016 and has been living and working in Philadelphia since that time. Prior to working in oncology, she supported hospice and palliative care patients in the community and in hospital settings and received a certification as an End-of-Life Doula from the University of Vermont in 2018. Currently, she works with the melanoma population at Jefferson and co-facilitates a monthly ocular melanoma support group in conjunction with the Melanoma Research Foundation.

Greg Garber is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Director of Patient Support Services for Supportive Medicine and Cancer Survivorship at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center (SKCC), In that role he manages all patient facing programs and services including Patient Education and Support Programming, Clinical Nutrition Support, Social Work Services, and numerous initiatives to better understand and address cancer disparities as they relate to health literacy, digital literacy, access, transportation, cancer screening and prevention. Greg has lectured and taught on local regional and national levels on issues related to psychosocial aspects of cancer care and have presented at numerous national conferences including ASCO, APOS, AOSW, APHA. Greg is engaged in ongoing research related to delivery of supportive medicine and survivorship programming, shared decision-making, digital and health literacy, medical marijuana in oncology populations and lung cancer screening in underserved populations. Greg has extensive experience implementing supportive services for patients with cancer throughout their care trajectory. Additionally, Greg co-directs SKCC’s Patient and Family Advisory Council.

Ramona Sitko, MSW, LSW, is an oncology social worker at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center of Jefferson Health in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She completed her graduate studies in social work at the University of Pennsylvania in 1989.  Prior to joining the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, she worked at Abington-Jefferson Health providing hospice and palliative care services to individuals at home and the inpatient acute care setting.  During that time, she completed her Advanced Certification in Hospice and Palliative Care in 2016 and has also initiated a home-based palliative care service program which focused on goals of care and advanced care planning.  Currently she is part of the outpatient Supportive Oncology team at Jefferson.   

Miriam Pomerantz Kadosh, MSW, LCSW is an oncology social worker at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center. Miriam works at the Cancer support and Welcome Center where she develops and evaluates patient and family programming including support groups, wellness programs and education sessions. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice with a Master’s in Social Work. Miriam is a co-facilitator of the Patient and Family advisory council, co-manages the Buddy peer match program and is an active member of the Schwartz Rounds planning committee creating a safe space for healthcare providers to talk about the human side of healthcare.