NCI Division of Cancer Biology Junior Investigators Meeting (Planning Committee)

Chia-Wen Chang is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on developing microengineered tissue models to investigate how physicochemical cues within the tumor microenvironment regulate vascular remodeling and immune cell behavior in cancer. His work integrates biomaterials, microfabrication and tissue engineering to create human-relevant in vitro models for studying immune cell invasion, therapeutic responses and drug resistance in glioblastoma. More broadly, his research seeks to recapitulate the physicochemical dynamics of the tumor microenvironment for disease modeling, with a particular focus on vascular mechanobiology, immunoengineering and cancer bioengineering. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from The Ohio State University and received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. His long-term research aims to advance microengineered tissue models for mechanistic studies and therapeutic discovery in cancer.

Stephan Daetwyler is an Instructor in the lab of Reto Fiolka at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, USA. His research program seeks to uncover how dynamic, transient immune–cancer cell interactions shape immune-cell decision-making and ultimately determine tumor fate. Central to this effort is the development of smart, integrated imaging platforms and computational tools to quantitatively analyze and perturb the molecular and biophysical mechanisms driving these interactions in vivo.

Stephan studied Interdisciplinary Sciences at ETH Zürich, with a major in physics and biology. For his doctoral thesis, he joined the lab of Dr. Jan Huisken, a pioneer of light-sheet microscopy, at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden, Germany, where he imaged and quantified vascular development with multidimensional light-sheet microscopy. Supported by an Early Postdoc Mobility Fellowship of the Swiss National Science Foundation, he then joined the labs of Dr. Reto Fiolka and Dr. Gaudenz Danuser to develop self-driving, smart microscopy technologies to study development, cancer metastasis, and regeneration across spatial and temporal scales.

Kwaghtaver Samuel Desongu is one of the co-chairs for the 2026 NCI Division of Cancer Biology Junior Investigators Meeting and a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Auburn University working in the Lipke Lab. His research focuses on developing physiologically relevant three-dimensional (3D) in vitro models to investigate colorectal cancer progression, with focused on obesity-associated insulin-resistant tumor microenvironments in CMS4 colorectal cancer. Using interdisciplinary approaches, he seeks to develop in vitro models that help uncover mechanisms by which adipocyte-derived factors influence colorectal cancer behavior.

Beyond the laboratory, Kwaghtaver is passionate about creating opportunities for others to grow, succeed, and pursue meaningful careers in STEM. He has served in leadership roles at Auburn University and nationally, where he has helped create professional development opportunities for peers and undergraduate students while also leading outreach efforts to inspire K-12 students. His research, leadership, and service have earned numerous recognitions including national recognitions from organizations such as the Society for Biomaterials and Merck. He looks forward to meeting and connecting with other investigators at this meeting.

Sogol Ghanbari is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Genetics at Stony Brook University. She conducts her research at the Stony Brook Cancer Center under the supervision of Dr. Mehdi Damaghi, where she investigates the role of tumor-associated macrophage-derived extracellular vesicles in ovarian cancer metastasis, with a particular focus on the tumor microenvironment and metastatic niche formation. In addition to her research, Sogol has previous experience serving on the executive and organizing committees of several scientific congresses and is passionate about fostering scientific collaboration and creating engaging academic events. She is pleased to be a member of the organizing committee for the DCB-JI Meeting 2026.

I am a PhD student in Dr. Andriy Marusyk's lab at the Moffitt Cancer Center. I hold a Master's degree in Medical Biotechnology, where under the mentorship of Dr. Rakesh Jain at the Massachusetts General Hospital, I completed my thesis on how therapy reshapes the tumor immune microenvironment in pediatric brain cancer.
That work sparked a lasting interest in how the tumor environment shapes treatment response, which I've continued exploring through tumor-stromal interactions in the Marusyk lab. Over the course of my doctoral work, I have garnered a keen interest in the translational aspects of my research. This has led me to study patient-to-patient variability in drug metabolism and its effect on systemic and tumor-drug exposure of targeted therapies. Despite the variability in drug metabolism, most patients receive a fixed drug dose — a gap that this work directly addresses. Across my research, I'm more and more driven by a broader commitment to patient-first, translational science.

I am a postdoctoral research associate in Dr. Christina Leslie’s lab in the Computational and Systems Biology Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. My research focuses on understanding gene regulatory programs of immune cells associated with tumor growth and how the immune programs are altered upon interactions with other cells in the tumor microenvironment. To address these questions, I develop and apply computational tools to analyze single cell and spatial data sets. Before joining Dr. Leslie’s lab, I received my PhD in Computer Science at Duke University in 2022 where I developed computational methods to analyze chromatin accessibility data sets to identify the occupancy profiles of nucleosomes and transcription factors in the genome.

Dr. Seongyeol Park, MD, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Stanford Cancer Institute and a CRI Dr. Keith Landesman Memorial Immuno-Informatics Fellow. A physician-scientist specializing in computational oncology, his research aims to decode the complex mechanisms of cancer evolution and build precise predictive models. He received his MD from Seoul National University College of Medicine, followed by internal medicine training, and completed his PhD in cancer genomics at KAIST, where his work on tumor evolution and lineage tracing earned him the Doosan Yonkang Academic Award (2022) and multiple KAIST Agarwal Awards (2019, 2022). Dr. Park also brings industry leadership as the former CTO of Inocras Korea Inc., where he led the development of advanced human whole-genome analysis pipelines. His current research utilizes multi-omics integration to investigate how cancer evolves through interactions with the tumor microenvironment.

I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Computational Oncology at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Science, The University of Texas at Austin. My work integrates real-world clinical data — including MRI, molecular profiling, and treatment schedules — with mathematical modeling and high-performance computing to build computational mechanistic tools, such as digital twins, that model tumor growth and response to therapy in a patient-specific manner. The goal is to move beyond "one-size-fits-all" predictions and translate these models into clinically actionable solutions for personalized therapy delivery.
As a representative of the CSBC program within the planning committee for the DCB Junior Investigator Meeting, I will organize a career path panel involving academic and industry speakers.

Maulee Sheth, PhD, is a PSON junior investigator and a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Shelly Peyton at Tufts University. Dr. Sheth is a biomechanical engineer interested in studying how mechanical forces in the tumor microenvironment shape cancer and translating these insights into mechano-inspired approaches that deliver instructive signals to reprogram the microenvironment toward next-generation cancer therapies. For her postdoctoral work, Dr. Sheth is integrating biomaterial platforms and multi-omic approaches to study cancer evolution from a unique mechanics-driven perspective. Before joining the Peyton Lab, she obtained her BS in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue and her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cincinnati, where she studied how cancer spheroids respond to matrix stiffness in 3D microenvironments, and how stiffness-induced mechanosignals are communicated via extracellular vesicles. Dr. Sheth is also passionate about mentorship and an active proponent of integrating interdisciplinary perspectives to solve modern biomedical problems.