Meet the Team
Leadership
Mignon Loh, MD
Dr. Mignon Loh is director of the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research and chief of the Division of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology, Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy, overseeing the Cancer and Blood Disorders Center at Seattle Children’s Hospital. Her research focuses on how and why leukemia progresses, as well as making genomics discoveries in the lab that translate into new and better diagnostics and therapeutics for children, adolescents and young adults with leukemia.
Elizabeth Lawlor, MD, PhD
Dr. Elizabeth Lawlor is associate director of the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research. Her research focuses on Ewing sarcoma, an aggressive bone and soft tissue tumor that peaks in adolescence and for which new cures are needed.
Read about the Lawlor Lab.
Faculty
Katie Albert, MD
Dr. Katie Albert is an associate professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine and attending physician at Seattle Children’s Hospital, where she serves as the medical director of the Solid Tumor Team and co-leads the multidisciplinary sarcoma program. Her research interests include molecular targets in sarcoma and immuno-oncology.
Colleen Annesley, MD
Dr. Colleen Annesley is a medical director and interim co-chief medical officer for Seattle Children’s Therapeutics. Dr. Annesley is also an attending physician at Seattle Children's Hospital and an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington. Her clinical areas of interest are leukemia, lymphoma and high-risk or relapsed leukemia.
Todd Cooper, DO
Dr. Todd Cooper is an attending physician at Seattle Children's Hospital, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Evans Family Endowed Chair in Pediatric Cancer. He is the associate director of Oncology at Seattle Children’s.
Erin Crotty, MD
Dr. Erin Crotty is an attending physician and pediatric oncologist in the Brain Tumor Program at Seattle Children's Hospital and an assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She cares for children and adolescents with brain and spinal cord tumors, and is the medical lead for the Retinoblastoma Program alongside oncologic ophthalmologist Dr. Andrew Stacey. She is involved locally and internationally in early-phase clinical trials for children with brain tumors and serves as site principal investigator for the Pacific Pediatric Neuro-oncology Consortium (PNOC). Her research and clinical interests focus on implementing new immunotherapies, like CAR T cells, and precision medicine approaches for difficult-to-treat brain tumors.
Ann Dahlberg, MD
Dr. Ann Dahlberg is a board-certified hematologist-oncologist who specialize in pediatric bone marrow transplantation. She provides care for children with a variety of malignant and non-malignant diseases with a focus on patients who have leukemia.
Whitney Eng, MD, MPH
Dr. Whitney Eng is an attending physician at Seattle Children’s Hospital, assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine and medical director of Vascular Anomalies at Seattle Children’s.
Myron Evans II, PhD
Dr. Myron Evans II is a principal investigator at the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research. His research focuses on understanding the epigenetic events that drive normal brain development and malignant central nervous system (CNS) tumors.
Read about the Evans Lab.
Kaitlyn Fladeboe, PhD
Dr. Kaitlyn (Katy) Fladeboe is an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Washington School of Medicine and principal investigator in the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. Dr. Fladeboe leads the Development and Psychosocial Outcomes Lab in the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research at Seattle Children's Research Institute. Her research focuses on understanding and addressing psychosocial needs of adolescents and young adults with serious illness and their family members.
Read about the Development and Psychosocial Outcomes Lab.
Amy Geddis, MD, PhD
Dr. Amy Geddis graduated from medical school at Jefferson Medical College, where she also obtained a PhD in biochemistry at Thomas Jefferson University. She then completed her pediatric residency training at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
Brittany Lee Greene, MD, MA
Dr. Brittany Lee Greene is an attending physician at Seattle Children’s Hospital, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine and director of ethics in the Cancer and Blood Disorders Program at Seattle Children’s.
Heather Gustafson, PhD
Dr. Heather Gustafson is a principal investigator at the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research and directs the Engineering and Designing Immunotherapy Laboratory (EDIT Labs). Her lab focuses on how to train a child’s innate immune system to fight cancer.
Anurekha Hall, MD, MS
Dr. Anurekha Hall is a pediatric oncologist at Seattle Children’s Hospital, assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and quality medical director of the Immune Effector Cell Program.
Douglas Hawkins, MD
Dr. Douglas Hawkins is the Group Chair of the Children's Oncology Group (COG). COG is the world’s largest organization devoted exclusively to childhood and adolescent cancer research. COG unites over 10,000 experts in childhood cancer at more than 200 leading children’s hospitals, universities and cancer centers across North America, Australia and New Zealand in the fight against childhood cancer. He is a clinician at Seattle Children's Hospital and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
Vandana Kalia, PhD
Dr. Vandana Kalia is a principal investigator at the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research. She is studying how genes regulate T cells and is pursuing ways to commandeer that process and help T cells to destroy tumors.
Read about the Kalia Lab.
Tyler Ketterl, MD, MS
Dr. Tyler Ketterl is an attending physician at Seattle Children’s Hospital and an assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is the medical director of the Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology Program. Ketterl holds triple board certifications in internal medicine, pediatrics and pediatric hematology-oncology. He completed his internal medicine and pediatrics residency at the University of Minnesota, his pediatric hematology-oncology fellowship at the University of Washington and his master of science in epidemiology, with a focus on clinical research methods, at the University of Washington.
Adam Lamble, MD
Dr. Adam Lamble is the medical director of the Immunotherapy Program at Seattle Children’s, an attending physician at Seattle Children’s Hospital and an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
Sarah Leary, MD, MS
Dr. Sarah Leary is an attending physician and medical director of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Program in the Cancer and Blood Disorders Center at Seattle Children’s Hospital. She is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine and an associate of the Fred Hutch Cancer Center. Leary is a leader in clinical and translational research with a goal of improving outcomes for children, adolescents and young adults with brain tumors.
Kasey Leger, MD, MSc
Dr. Kasey Leger is the director of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Program, an attending physician at Seattle Children's Hospital and an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Her clinical interests focus on leukemia, lymphoma and cancer survivorship.
Shan Lin, PhD
Dr. Shan Lin received his doctorate in molecular and developmental biology at the University of Cincinnati, where he focused on using human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells to model the pathogenesis of acute leukemia driven by fusion proteins and characterizing critical pathways contributing to leukemia development. During his postdoctoral training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, he applied functional genomic approaches, including an in vivo CRISPR screen pipeline, to identify the novel targets of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and to discover the synergistic targets that enhance the efficacy of apoptosis-stimulating agents against AML. He joined the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research at Seattle Children’s Research Institute in 2023. The research interests of his lab include investigating the molecular mechanisms of programmed cell death regulation in leukemia and harnessing this knowledge to advance the treatment of difficult-to-treat hematologic malignancies.l.
Kristin Maher, MD, PhD
Dr. Kristin Maher is an attending physician at Seattle Children’s Hospital, and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Her clinical and research interests focus on disorders of hemostasis and thrombosis.
David Noyd, MD, MPH
Dr. David Noyd is the director of the Cancer Survivorship Program at Seattle Children’s.
Shannon Oda, PhD
Dr. Shannon Oda is a principal investigator at the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research. Her lab develops engineering strategies that enable T cells to overcome obstacles in the tumor microenvironment and mount a more powerful, durable and sustained attack on cancer cells.
Read about the Oda Lab.
James M. Olson, MD, PhD
Dr. Jim Olson focuses on the discovery and development of novel therapeutics (e.g., “Tumor Paint”/Tozuleristide) with particular expertise in pediatric brain tumors. His team collaborates with labs across all disciplines at Seattle Children's Research Institute to discover novel therapeutics for pediatric patients.
Read about the Olson Lab.
Siobhan Pattwell, PhD
Dr. Siobhan Pattwell is a principal investigator at the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research. Her research focuses on the intersection between neurodevelopment, genetics and cancer.
Read about the Pattwell Lab.
Jason Price, PhD
Dr. Jason Price is an acting assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington and a principal Investigator at the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research. He is a protein engineer specializing in novel therapeutic design. The Price Lab launched in July 2024 with the mission to develop innovative protein-based therapies for the treatment of pediatric disease.
Ram Rao, MD, PhD
Dr. Ram Rao is a principal investigator at the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research and a pediatric oncologist at Seattle Children’s Hospital. He is an acting assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington. His lab harnesses biomaterials and tissue engineering technologies to create advanced 3D models of pediatric tumors, enabling the study of cell-matrix interactions that drive chemoresistance to identify novel therapeutic targets.
Rachel Rau, MD
Dr. Rachel Rau is an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington, principle investigator in the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research, and a board-certified pediatric hematologist-oncologist at Seattle Children's Hospital. Her lab-based research program is focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms that drive leukemogenesis and therapy resistance with the aim of translating these findings into clinical applications. Through clinical trial work with the Children's Oncology Group (COG), she also works to introduce novel agents and assays into the therapy for children with leukemia to enhance efficacy and minimize toxicities of treatment.
Julie Rivers, MD, MS
Dr, Julie Rivers is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington, and an attending physician at Seattle Children's Hospital. Her research has focused on the development of correlative studies that advance our understanding of novel immunotherapy treatments that are being tested in clinical trials for the treatment of pediatric leukemia and lymphoma, as well as solid tumors.
Gavin Roach, MD, MS
Dr. Gavin Roach is an attending physician at Seattle Children’s Hospital, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine and the medical director of the Thrombosis Program at Seattle Children’s. He is also the interim medical director of the Sickle Cell Program.
Rebecca Ronsley, MD, FRCPC
Dr. Rebecca Ronsley is an attending physician and pediatric oncologist in the Brain Tumor Program at Seattle Children’s Hospital. She is the program director for the Pediatric Neuro-oncology Fellowship and education lead for the Brain Tumor Program at Seattle Children’s Hospital. She is a clinician-scholar and is involved with local (including our BrainChild/CAR-T trials) and national trials to develop novel therapies for difficult-to-treat pediatric brain tumors. As well, she is interested in survivorship/morbidity reduction for pediatric brain tumor patients and collaborates locally and nationally with the Childhood Cancer Survivorship Study and the International CNS Germ Cell Tumor Consortium.
Surojit Sarkar, PhD
Dr. Surojit Sarkar is a principal investigator at the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research. He is pursuing ways to help the immune system remember cancer and attack it if it relapses – whether that’s months or decades after a child goes into remission.
Read about the Sarkar Lab.
Jay Sarthy, MD, PhD
Dr. Jay Sarthy seeks to improve the lives of children with cancer by studying the fundamental mechanisms cancer cells use to evade therapies and develop resistance.
Read about the Sarthy Lab.
Joelle Payne Straehla, MD
Dr. Joelle Straehla is a principal investigator at the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research and a pediatric oncologist at Seattle Children's Hospital. She is an assistant professor of pediatrics and an adjunct assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington. The Straehla Lab seeks to advance drug delivery technologies for cancer therapy, with a special emphasis on using nanomedicines in pediatric cancers.
Read about the Straehla Lab.
Katherine Tarlock, MD
Dr. Katherine Tarlock is the director of the High-Risk Leukemia and Lymphoma Program at Seattle Children’s, a clinician at Seattle Children’s Hospital, an assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine and a research affiliate at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center. She is an active member of the Myeloid Disease Committee of the Children’s Oncology Group (COG). She is also an active member of the New Agents Committee. She was the chair of one COG trial for children with relapsed/refractory AML and has another trial in development. She is active in research efforts in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), with a focus on development of novel therapies.
Molly Taylor, MD, MS
Dr. Molly Taylor is a board-certified pediatric oncologist who specializes in translational biobehavioral research. She graduated from Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire, and completed her residency in pediatrics and fellowship in pediatric hematology-oncology at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
She is an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Hematology-Oncology, at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and a principal investigator in the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Research. Her research program is integrated with the Palliative Care and Resilience Research Program and focuses on describing the mechanisms linking the mind, brain and immune system in pediatric patients with cancer.
Read about the Biobehavioral Oncology Research Program.
Amy Tellinghuisen, MD
Dr. Amy Tellinghuisen is an attending physician at Seattle Children’s Hospital and clinical associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington. She earned her medical degree at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. She then completed her pediatric residency, chief residency and pediatric hematology-oncology fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.
Nicholas Vitanza, MD
Dr. Nicholas Vitanza is a pediatric neuro-oncologist and translational scientist whose career is dedicated to the care of children with CNS tumors such as DIPG or DMG.
Read about the Vitanza Lab.
Jennifer Wilkes, MD, MSCE
Dr. Jennifer Wilkes is an attending physician in the division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology at Seattle Children’s Hospital with a focus on quality improvement. She is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine.