Translate Meet Our Fellows
First-Year Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellows (2026-2029)
Karan Abraham, MD, PhD (2024-2027 Fellow)
Residency: Boston Combined Residency Program
Research interests: Mechanisms of tumor evolution, bridging experimental technologies with machine learning approaches, translational research to develop new therapies
Karan ("Josh") Abraham was born and raised in Chennai, India, and immigrated to Canada as a young adult, an experience that shaped his sense of gratitude and resolve to use scientific discovery in service of others. He completed his MD/PhD at the University of Toronto, where his doctoral work uncovered new mechanisms linking nucleolar biology, genome stability, and cancer. This work led to a first-author publication in Nature, several additional high-impact publications, the Stuart Alan Hoffman Prize for best PhD thesis, the Adel S. Sedra Distinguished Graduate Award, and the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame Award. Josh completed his pediatric residency at Boston Children’s Hospital and joined the hematology/oncology fellowship program in 2024 on an individualized training pathway that enabled him to begin his fellowship with dedicated research time. As a Pediatric Scientist Development Program (PSDP) fellow under the mentorship of Dr. Jonathan Weissman at the Whitehead Institute/MIT, Josh is developing new single-cell and spatial approaches to address a central challenge in cancer biology: understanding why genetically similar cells within the same tumor diverge and how this diversity drives treatment resistance. Outside of medicine and science, Josh enjoys soccer, track and field, cooking, and raising his three young children with his wife.
Devika Bagchi, MD, PhD
Residency: Boston Combined Residency Program
Research interests: Mechanisms underlying leukemia treatment failure and relapse, biomarker development, targeted therapies for leukemia
Devika grew up outside of New York City before becoming a true Midwest girl for her high school, undergraduate studies, and medical training. She completed her BA in neuroscience at Washington University in St. Louis before pursuing her MD and PhD at the University of Michigan Medical School. Working with Dr. Ormond MacDougald, her doctoral research explored how Wnt signaling shapes fatty acid metabolism and adipocyte function. This research resulted in multiple publications, and her thesis was honored with the ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award. Devika went on to complete her pediatrics residency in the Boston Combined Residency Program (BCRP), where she conducted research with Dr. Yana Pikman and Dr. Matthew Vander Heiden to explore metabolic differences across pediatric leukemic subtypes. After residency, Devika stayed at Boston Children’s Hospital for an additional year as a chief resident. Outside of work, Devika can be found eating and drinking her way around Boston with her fiancé Jesse, tending to her many plants, throwing enthusiastically themed parties for friends, skiing whenever possible, and indulging her wanderlust by exploring new places both near and far.
Kendall Carpenter, MD, MPH
Residency: Boston Combined Residency Program
Research interests: Global pediatric hematology-oncology, capacity-building, implementation science, communication, medical education
Kendall grew up in Connecticut and attended Bowdoin College where she majored in neuroscience and minored in English. After graduation, she spent a year in Botswana as a Princeton in Africa Fellow at the Botswana-Baylor Children's Clinical Centre of Excellence working with adolescents living with HIV, which sparked her interest in global health and pediatrics. Kendall completed medical school at Harvard and concurrently earned an MPH in global health and population at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. She completed pediatrics residency in the Boston Combined Residency Program on the global health track and served as chief resident at Boston Medical Center. During residency, Kendall pursued research in global pediatric hematology-oncology, survivorship communication, and implementation science, leading projects in Rwanda, the occupied Palestinian territories, and within Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Outside of work she enjoys skiing, reading, and exploring Boston's restaurants with her husband, Brian, daughter, Annabelle, and dog, Millie.
Lt. Rebecca Hill, MD
Residency: Naval Medical Center Portsmouth
Research interests: Palliative care, medical education, communication, quality improvement
Rebecca grew up in Yorktown, Virginia. She attended William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, where she obtained a degree in neuroscience with a minor in biochemistry. During her gap years she worked as a teacher in underserved communities in Virginia, where she developed a love for education prior to starting medical school at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. Through medical school, her interest in medical education grew as she took over the role of Peer Assisted Learning Coordinator. During this role, she established a remediation program for all medical students. She completed pediatric residency at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, caring for the children of military families after being a "Navy brat" herself. During her time as a military resident, she was able to expand her interest for global health with time on the USNS Comfort, where she cared for children in Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, and Costa Rica. Outside of work, Rebecca enjoys reading, running, trying new restaurants, and planning her next adventure.
Jorge Diego Martin Rufino, MD, PhD
Residency: Boston Combined Residency Program
Research interests: Hematopoietic stem cell biology and transplantation, genome regulation, and engineering gene regulatory programs to treat non-malignant and malignant hematologic disease
Jorge grew up in Salamanca, Spain, where he earned his medical degree at the Universidad de Salamanca. Caring for children with cancer and bone marrow transplant recipients during his medical training drew him to hematology and to a dual clinical and scientific career. He graduated with the National End-of-Degree Award in Medicine, given to the top medical graduate nationwide in Spain. He completed his PhD at Harvard University, where his thesis work with Drs. Vijay Sankaran and Eric Lander developed massively parallel base-editing approaches in human hematopoietic stem cells, revealing new therapeutic strategies for sickle cell disease and leukemia. Jorge completed his pediatrics residency in the Boston Combined Residency Program. His research group at the Broad Institute is developing new approaches to uncover the fundamental regulatory wiring of the genome and to transform stem cell transplantation, enabling transplants with minimal toxicity. Jorge is a classically trained pianist who loves playing chamber music with friends, composing, and writing prose. He shares a love of travel with his partner, Anna Maria, a mathematician and physicist.
Holly Roberts, MD
Residency: Boston Combined Residency Program
Research interests: Solid/brain tumors, early phase clinical trial development, novel biomarkers, genomics/epigenomics
Holly grew up in Hudson, New Hampshire. She went to Boston University for undergraduate studies. During her gap years before medical school, she worked in the Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Experimental Therapeutics Program, where she developed an interest in early phase clinical trials. While at the University of Michigan Medical School, Holly worked with the pediatric neuro-oncology group investigating approaches to targeted therapy selection, the intersection of palliative care and clinical trial enrollment, and molecular and clinical predictors of long-term survival in children with aggressive gliomas. Holly then returned to Boston to complete residency in the Boston Combined Residency Program. During this time, she has worked with the solid tumor group to investigate circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in advanced solid tumors and the clinical impacts of next-generation sequencing in patients with neuroblastoma. Outside of work, Holly enjoys spending time with her husband, Dylan, and cat, Josie; trying new coffee shops and restaurants; exploring the city; and spending time at the beach (as the weather allows).
Chiara Wychera, MD
Residency: Boston Combined Residency Program
Research interests: Bone marrow transplantation and cellular therapies, GVHD, computational immunology
Chiara was born and raised in Baden, Austria, and completed medical school at the Ludwig Maximilian University Faculty of Medicine in Munich, Germany. During medical school, she completed a research year at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, where she developed an interest in hematopoietic cell transplantation through research on infectious complications following bone marrow transplantation. She completed her pediatric residency training in the Boston Combined Residency Program, where she joined Dr. Leslie Kean’s laboratory. During residency, her research focused on T cell dynamics in bone marrow transplant recipients, using T cell receptor sequencing analysis to study post-transplant immune reconstitution and graft-versus-host disease. Outside of work, Chiara enjoys running, hiking, and spending time with her partner, Ahmed, a child neurology resident at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Second-Year Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellows (2025-2028)
Emily Anderson, MD, MPH
Residency: Massachusetts General Hospital
Research interests: Neuro-oncology, targeted therapy, clinical trial development
Emily grew up in Grafton, Massachusetts. She went to Colby College for undergraduate studies and Tulane University for a Master of Science in public health. She returned to Massachusetts for medical school at Tufts. She was a neurosurgical resident before transitioning into the world of pediatrics at Mass General Brigham for Children in 2021. During her residency, Emily worked as a research scholar in Mariella Filbin's lab at Dana-Farber, studying combination therapeutics in diffuse midline glioma cell lines. She also did research with Dr. Torunn Yock in Mass General Brigham's proton beam center, where she looked at the late effect profile in children treated with localized brain tumors. She stayed on at Massachusetts General Hospital for an additional year as a chief resident and worked as a pediatric hospitalist. In her free time, Emily enjoys reading, yoga, exploring Boston's culinary scene with her partner, Dave, and going for walks with her black lab, Lucy.
Sarah Brnich, MD, PhD
Residency: Boston Combined Residency Program
Research interests: Hereditary cancer predisposition, variants of uncertain significance, functional analysis
Sarah grew up in Ellicott City, Maryland, and has two younger sisters. She attended Dickinson College, graduating with majors in Spanish and biochemistry and molecular biology. After graduation, she won a Fulbright research grant and spent a year in Buenos Aires, Argentina, studying the molecular profiles of breast cancer. Sarah then earned her MD and PhD at the University of North Carolina. Working with Dr. Jonathan Berg, Sarah's dissertation focused on the use of functional assays in clinical interpretation of germline genetic variants. She developed a cellular assay of DNA damage repair outcomes to evaluate missense variants of uncertain significance (VUS) in hereditary breast cancer genes, PALB2 and BRCA2, contributing additional evidence needed for VUS reclassification. Sarah also led an expert panel to establish guidelines for how to validate and use functional data in clinical variant interpretation. This work led to multiple publications and was recognized with the prestigious David L. Rimoin Inspiring Excellence Award by the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics. Following medical school, Sarah completed her pediatrics residency in the Boston Combined Residency Program in the Integrated Research Pathway, mentored by Dr. Akiko Shimamura. During residency, Sarah and her husband welcomed their first child, who is finally home with them in Jamaica Plain after an 11-month hospitalization due to complications of prematurity. Sarah is humbled and honored to continue training at Boston Children's Hospital, where her own daughter received life-saving care.
Atinuke Dosunmu-Ogunbi, MD, PhD
Residency: Boston Combined Residency Program
Research interests: Curative therapies for hemoglobinopathies, genetic modifiers
Oyin was born and raised in Alabama, the middle child of Nigerian immigrants. She completed her bachelor's degree at the University of Pittsburgh in molecular biology with a minor in Chinese language. She then spent a year studying Mandarin in Nanjing, China, and traveling before beginning her MD/PhD training in the University of Pittsburgh/Carnegie Mellon University program. During her PhD studies, Oyin studied genetic modifiers of sickle cell disease (SCD) in the lab of Dr. Adam Straub, where she discovered that a polymorphism of superoxide dismutase 2 (SOD2) is associated with clinical markers of pulmonary hypertension in patients with SCD. She continued her training at the Boston Combined Residency Program in the Accelerated Research Pathway. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her husband, Josh, a pathology resident at Mass General Brigham, and her two dogs, Raphael and Cassie.
Sachin Kumar, MD, PhD
Residency: Boston Combined Residency Program
Research interests: Neuro-oncology, genetics and epigenetics, origins of pediatric brain tumors
Sachin was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. He completed his undergraduate degree in human biology at the University of Toronto, followed by a Master of Science in molecular genetics, with a research focus on antibody development and cancer biology. He went on to pursue an MD/PhD degree at the University of Toronto. His research, under the supervision of Dr. Michael Taylor, explored the genetic and epigenetic underpinnings of two common pediatric brain tumors. He identified a novel mutation within small nuclear RNAs that guide splicing, defining an entire subtype of medulloblastoma. He also characterized how a hypoxic microenvironment fosters an epigenetic state that drives a lethal form of infantile ependymoma. After medical school, he completed his pediatrics training at the Boston Combined Residency Program in the Accelerated Research Pathway. Outside of work, Sachin enjoys cycling, soccer, and stand-up comedy.
Caity Miller, MD
Residency: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Research interests: Medical education, health equity, patient/family communication, outcomes
Caity was born, raised, and educated in Connecticut. She completed both her undergraduate studies, where she majored in molecular and cellular biology, as well as medical school at the University of Connecticut. Her undergraduate thesis in genetics focused on characterizing epigenetic factors in sex based modeling; however, through a series of opportunities and experiences, she found her love of medicine and clinical work outside of the lab. In her gap year, she worked on a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) funded, multicentered research study aimed to improve decision making for women with newly diagnosed breast cancer. In medical school, she was highly involved in medical education and taught doctoring courses for first and second year medical students. She worked on projects focused on improving time to access antibiotics for patients with sickle cell disease presenting with fever, COVID vaccine hesitancy, and kangaroo mother care in rural Uganda. She completed her residency at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where most of her work was involved in medical education, for which she received an Advanced Skill. Caity is looking forward to returning to the Northeast.
Third-Year Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellows (2024-2027)
Joseph deBettencourt, MD
Residency: Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago
Research interests: Patient/provider communication, medical technologies, science communication, pain management
Joseph (Joey), a native Chicagoan, completed his undergraduate degree in theatre at Northwestern University and worked for years as a professional actor and a standardized patient at the University of Illinois Chicago. As a standardized patient, Joey worked alongside medical trainees to hone their communication skills and became inspired to go into medicine. He returned to Northwestern, taking night classes to complete his pre-medicine degree, while continuing to work both as a standardized patient as well as a researcher for a healthcare start-up focused on improving surgical efficiency. He attended Rush Medical College and was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society and Gold Humanism Society. During his time in medical school, Joey pursued research into communication skills and science communication, publishing studies on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in pediatric oncology providers and pieces of narrative medicine. He completed his residency at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. During his time at Lurie, Joey helped design a simulation based program to improve recognition and response to bias in the workplace and performed research on chemotherapy induced cardiotoxicity. His goal is to advance the study and science of how those in medicine communicate with patients and their communities. Joey also enjoys spending time with his wife and son and woodworking.
Daniel Echelman, MD, PhD
Residency: Boston Combined Residency Program
Research interests: Complement biology, mechanobiology, drug development
Daniel was raised in Central Massachusetts. He received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Princeton University and went on to Columbia University to complete his MD/PhD training. During his PhD work with Professor Julio Fernandez, he developed tools for studying single molecules under mechanical force. His research defined how force alters the reactivity of covalent bonds in a bacterial adhesion protein, with implications for how bacteria adhere to tissues under shearing force. He continued his training at the Boston Combined Residency Program (BCRP) in the Integrated Research Pathway, where he worked with Chris Bahl on developing miniprotein inhibitors of the complement system. Following residency, he practiced as a primary care pediatrician at Boston Children's Hospital and worked at a Boston-area biotech on preclinical drug development.
Luke Frankiw, MD, PhD
Residency: Boston Combined Residency Program
Research interests: Cancer immunology, preleukemia and malignant predisposition
Luke was born and raised in Calgary, Canada. He completed his undergraduate degrees in chemistry and bioengineering as part of a combined program between Haverford College and California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Luke then embarked on an MD/PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Caltech. He was the final graduate student of Nobel Laureate, David Baltimore, and his PhD work helped uncover the role of mRNA splicing in the regulation of gene expression in immune cells. This work resulted in multiple first author papers in Molecular Cell, RNA, and Nature Reviews Immunology. During his clerkship years, Luke developed an interest in oncology, and he led a research project related to immunotherapy resistance published in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer under the guidance of Scott Nowicki. Following medical school, Luke completed his pediatrics residency in the Boston Combined Residency Program in the Accelerated Research Pathway.
Pietro Miozzo, MD
Residency: Massachusetts General Hospital
Research interests: Medical education, illness communication, outcomes, pediatric palliative care
Pietro is originally from Padua, Italy, and came to the US as a small child, finally ending up in New York City. After middle school, he went to live in Cambridge, United Kingdom, where he attended high school and studied violin at the Royal College of Music in London. He returned to the US for undergraduate studies at Yale University, majoring in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology. In college, he developed an interest in immunology research, working on autoimmune disease research with Dr. Akiko Iwasaki. He then spent a year at the National Institutes of Health as a research fellow, studying B cell metabolism with Dr. Susan Pierce. He returned to New England for medical school at the University of Massachusetts. During residency at Mass General Brigham for Children, he became interested in serious illness communication, participating in workshops to coach residents in these skills, and medical education, working on the “Tiny Talks” education platform. He also worked with Dr. Lael Yonker, researching immune response to COVID-19 infection and vaccination in children with cancer, as well as Drs. Emily Johnston and Julie Wolfson at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, examining the clinical course and risk factors of children with cancer during a second COVID-19 infection. He subsequently spent a year as a chief resident at Mass General Brigham for Children, working as a pediatric hospitalist and enjoying teaching residents and medical students. He lives in Boston with his partner, Emma, a medicine-pediatrics (med-peds) rheumatology fellow at Boston Children's Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital, and their mischievous cat, Olive.
Dana Neel, MD, PhD
Residency: Boston Combined Residency Program
Research interests: Cancer epigenetics and chromatin dysregulation, targeted therapeutics for pediatric malignancies
Dana grew up outside of Boston as the middle child of three girls. She went west for undergrad at Stanford University, where she obtained a bachelor of science degree with honors in molecular and cell biology and spent three years in the laboratory of Jerry Crabtree studying chromatin dynamics. She then moved slightly north to the University of California, San Francisco, where she earned an MD and PhD. Her graduate work in the lab of Dr. Trever Bivona revealed that the particular subcellular localization of different oncogenic ROS1 fusion proteins in lung cancer is critical in driving specific oncogenic signaling pathways. She also demonstrated that oncogenic fusions involving certain receptor tyrosine kinases form membraneless cytoplasmic granules that are required for pathogenic RAS-MAPK signaling. She went on to complete her pediatrics residency at the Boston Combined Residency Program, where she participated in the Integrated Research Pathway and re-entered the world of cancer epigenetics through work with Dr. Cigall Kadoch and Dr. Scott Armstrong. She spent the last year as a chief resident at Boston Children’s Hospital. Ultimately, she is working toward a career as a physician-scientist, through which she hopes for a deeper understanding of chromatin dysregulation in pediatric cancers that could open up new avenues for targeted therapies. Outside of the hospital, she enjoys long-distance running and playground-hopping with her two young daughters.
Tolulope Rosanwo, MD
Residency: Boston Combined Residency Program
Research interests: Curative therapy of hemoglobinopathies, erythropoiesis, anemia
Tolu was born in England but grew up mostly in the suburbs outside of Chicago with her Nigerian family, attending the University of Chicago for a bachelor's degree in the biological sciences and Case Western Reserve University for medical school. She interrupted her time at Case to spend two years as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) medical fellow in George Daley's laboratory, successfully modeling sickle cell anemia (SCA) with induced pluripotent stem cells. She is an inventor on a patent from this work. She later returned to Boston to complete residency in the Boston Combined Residency Program. As a resident in the Integrated Research Pathway (IRP), she studied the effects of BCL11A erythroid-specific enhancer editing and hydroxyurea on fetal hemoglobin induction and erythropoiesis with Daniel Bauer. She plans to continue her career as physician-scientist studying how different forms of curative therapy and treatment of SCA impact erythropoiesis and contributors to variability in outcomes for patients. Her specific interest in SCA is born from having multiple family members with the condition. Outside of work, she loves playing her cello, HIIT workouts, trying new restaurants, and watching feature films and documentaries.
Fourth-Year Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellows (2023-2027)
Alba Sommerschield, MD
Residency: Boston Combined Residency Program
Research interests: Targeted- and precision cancer therapy; high-risk, relapsed, refractory pediatric leukemias
Alba grew up in Italy and attended the University of Pavia (Italy) for medical school and the merit-based Institute for Advanced Study (IUSS Pavia) for a parallel master's in biomedical sciences. She graduated with honors and special mention from the board for her clinical research thesis on the use of next-generation sequencing for the identification of myeloid neoplasms with germline predisposition. During medical school she split her time between the hematologic malignancy outpatient clinic at San Matteo Hospital in Pavia and pursuing her interest for basic research in hematology-oncology in the United Kingdom and United States. In Simon Mendez-Ferrer's lab at the University of Cambridge, she studied the mechanisms by which leukemic stem cells co-opt mesenchymal stromal cells for energy and antioxidative defense in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) as a visiting scholar at St. John's College. In Boston, she worked in George Q. Daley's lab on modelling altered T-cell development in Omenn syndrome, a RAG2 immune deficiency, via a patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) disease-in-a-dish model and correcting the deficiency with CRISPR. After medical school, she returned to Boston to complete pediatric residency training in the Boston Combined Residency Program (BCRP) in the Accelerated Research Pathway. She plans to pursue a career as a physician-scientist in the field of hematologic malignancies, with a research focus on precision-based therapy in pediatric leukemias.
Bjorn Stolte, MD
Residency: Boston Combined Residency Program
Research interests: Studying transcription factor modulation, transcriptional regulation, and phase separation in pediatric cancers
Bjorn earned his MD from the University of Munich in Germany. As a medical student, he completed research training at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the laboratory of Kimberly Stegmaier, where he worked with genomic and chemical screening data to identify novel therapeutic approaches to Ewing sarcoma and neuroblastoma. He contributed to work focused on finding genetic dependencies in the TP53 wild type subset of Ewing sarcoma, studying the transcriptionally active cyclin-dependant kinase 12 in Ewing sarcoma cells, and understanding how neuroblastoma cells become resistant to epigenetically-active BET bromodomain inhibitors. His research doctorate thesis earned the highest grade of summa cum laude and was honored with an award for academic excellence by the University of Munich. Bjorn completed his pediatrics residency at the Boston Combined Residency Program (BCRP) at Boston Children's Hospital in the Accelerated Research Pathway (ARP).