Trainee Associate Member Program

• Funding Opportunites. TAM members can apply for the following awards and grants. Please note that trainees are limited to two TAM awards/grants per two-year membership term and may only receive the same award/grant once per two-year membership term. 
  • Predoctoral Pilot Grants. Graduate students can compete for Predoctoral Pilot Grants with a value of $5,000 each. Up to three grants will be awarded annually. Example application here.
  • Postdoctoral Pilot Grants. Postdoctoral students, residents/fellows and associate research scientists can compete for Postdoctoral Pilot Grants with a value of $10,000 each. Up to five grants will be awarded annually. Example application here.
  • Travel Awards. Trainee Associate Members will be eligible for travel awards with a value of up to $1,000 each to be applied to costs related to attendance at a meeting at which the trainee is giving either a poster or platform presentation. Applications open quarterly in mid-January, April, July, and September. Decisions are released roughly five to six weeks after opening. Apply here when open.
  • Paper(s) of the Year. Publications will be selected based on scientific merit and impact. Awardees will receive a salary bonus of $500. Up to six awards will be given annually.  
• HICCC-branded Merchandise. All Trainee Associate Members will receive HICCC-branded items.  
• Trainee Associate Member Symposium. Trainee Associate Members will be expected to participate, as speakers or to present posters, at an annual one-day HICCC-hosted symposium.
• Career Networking Events. Members will be invited to attend career networking events. These events will include panel discussions on career paths by scientists in the tristate area, along with leaders in industry, business, science communication, education, science philanthropy, and policy. Following the panel discussions, trainees will be invited to mingle with the panelists.  
• Lunches with Distinguished Speakers. Trainee Associate Members will be given priority to have lunch with speakers from HICCC’s Distinguished Speaker Seminar Series.  
• Training Opportunities. Trainees will have increased access to seminars and short courses for grant and manuscript preparation, cancer biology education and for career development.  
• Career Counseling. Trainees will be offered at least one half-hour session per semester for career counseling with either the Director or Assistant Director of the CRTEC. To set up an appointment, select which CRTEC leader best fits your needs and email them directly:
  • Katherine Crew, MD, MS, is Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology who cares for patients with breast cancer and women at high-risk for breast cancer. Her research focuses on breast cancer risk assessment, genetic testing, screening, prevention and survivorship. She conducts both observational studies and clinical trials on modifiable biomarkers of breast cancer risk (kd59@cumc.columbia.edu).
  • Jasmine McDonald, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology who researches the underlying mechanisms of disease etiology with a focus on breast cancer etiology and risk reduction. She has expertise in molecular epidemiology,  lifecourse epidemiology, longitudinal study designs, and examining the role of environmental exposures on health.  She is also an active community educator (jam2319@cumc.columbia.edu).
  • If unsure, email Marian LaForest (ml4338@cumc.columbia.edu) and she will advise your selection. 
• Trainee Associate Members Resources. The HICCC website highlight special events and opportunities for Trainee Associate Members and trainee research accomplishments and news. Trainee Associate Members also receive a weekly newsletter with funding opportunities, events, and more. Trainee Associate Members will also be featured in HICCC member communications.  

Trainees who conduct cancer-related research under the mentorship of an HICCC member(s) and belong to one of the following groups are eligible for membership: 

• Graduate students enrolled in PhD, DrPH, MD, MS/PhD, or MD/PhD programs who are engaged in cancer research.
• Medical students must have committed to cancer research for their scholarly project or research year.
• Postdoctoral research fellows and postdoctoral research scientists.
• Postdoctoral residency fellows and postdoctoral clinical fellows in oncology-related clinical training.
• Associate research scientists who are on track for a faculty level position in academia or industry.

Members are admitted twice a year by a standing selection committee. Membership term will be for two years and subject to annual review to determine good standing. Membership can be extended for two additional years for a total of 4 years maximum. 

TAM Paper of the Year Awardees

Congratulations to the 2025 Trainee Associate Members (TAM) Paper of the Year awardees:

• "An engineered model of metastatic colonization of human bone marrow reveals breast cancer cell remodeling of the hematopoietic niche" by Ilaria Baldassarri, PhD student 
  • Mentored by Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, PhD (POSB)
• "Mapping multimodal phenotypes to perturbations in cells and tissue with CRISPRmap" by Jiacheng Gu, PhD student
  • Mentored by Jellert Gaublomme, PhD (TBM)
• "The association of HIV status with triple-negative breast cancer in patients with breast cancer in South Africa: a cross-sectional analysis of case-only data from a prospective cohort study" by Jacob Dubner, medical student
  • Mentored by Alfred Neugut, MD (CPS) 
• "Systematic Characterization of p53-Regulated Long Noncoding RNAs across Human Cancers Reveals Remarkable Heterogeneity among Different Tumor Types" by Kausik Regunath, PhD
  • Mentored by Carol Prives, PhD, and Raul Rabadan, PhD (CGE) 
• "Hematopoietic stem cell niche generation and maintenance are distinguishable by an epitranscriptomic program" by Longfei Gao, PhD
  • Mentored by Lei Ding, PhD (TBM) 
• "Sympathetic Neurons Promote Small Cell Lung Cancer through the β2-Adrenergic Receptor" by Tala, PhD
  • Mentored by Jianwen Que, MD, PhD (TBM)

TAM Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Pilot Awardees

The 2025 TAM Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Pilot Awards, an internal mentored research award to support individuals proposing cancer research, have been awarded to the following eight individuals:

• Shruti Banerjee, PhD; VP&S - Molecular Pharmacology & Therapeutics; Mentored by Carla Concepcion, PhD, CGE program member
  • Investigating the role of ARID1A alterations in lung adenocarcinoma
• Roshni de Souza, PhD; Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center; Mentored by Juan Manuel Schvartzman, MD, PhD, CGE program member
  • The effect of hypoxia on cell state transitions in the normal colon and in colorectal cancer​
• Jennifer Ho, PhD student; GSAS - Nutritional and Metabolic Biology; Mentored by Chia-Wei Cheng, PhD, TBM program member ​
  • Metabolically aberrant origin and inflammatory niche of early-onset colorectal cancer
• Jenny Jin, MD-PhD student; GSAS - Cellular, Molecular and Biomedical Studies​; Mentored by Brent Stockwell, PhD, POSB program member
  • Targeting metabolic vulnerabilities in hepatocellular carcinoma
• Noriyuki Nishiwaki, MD, PhD; Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center​; Mentored by Anil Rustgi, MD, TBM program member ​
  • Elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying the pancreas acinar to ductal metaplasia and subsequent neoplastic transformation​
• Joyce Ogidigo, PhD; VP&S – Medicine​; Mentored by Sanghvi Viraj, PhD, POSB program member​
  • Unraveling Epigenetic Vulnerabilities in Overnutrition-Promoted Lung Cancer​
• Daniel Naveed Tavakol, PhD; Engineering–Biomedical Engineering​​; Mentored by Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, PhD, POSB program member
  • Dissecting the bone marrow niche as a regulator for primary and metastatic tumor cell survival
• Carly Tymm, MD-PhD student; GSAS - Cellular, Molecular and Biomedical Studies​; Mentored by Adam Mor, MD, PhD, TBM program member​
  • Gaining insights from the T cell-macrophage relationship in immune checkpoint inhibitor myocarditis to identify new therapies