Cheryl Willman, MD, was a junior in high school busily applying to colleges when her family received some devastating news: Her father had been diagnosed with an extensive melanoma on his upper back and was told that he would likely die within 3 months. Dr. Willman's path to becoming a highly regarded physicianscientist began at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, where she majored in chemistry and graduated in 1977. Next, she attended Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science in Rochester, Minnesota, where, as a third-year medical student, she was accepted into a 6-month physician-scientist training program in immunology at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Her mentors in the program were leading immunologists Anthony S. Fauci, MD, and Alfred D. Steinberg, MD, and she worked in the laboratory of Stanley J. Korsmeyer, MD, who was known for his pioneering work on genetic rearrangements in lymphoma and leukemia. The experience proved pivotal. “I became really interested in translational medicine, genome science, and hematologic malignancies, and it cemented the thought that I wanted to be a physician heavily engaged in research,” Dr. Willman says. Graduating from Mayo in 1981, she completed her residency and postdoctoral training in pathology and cancer research at the NIH, the University of New Mexico, and the University of Washington in Seattle. Settling in New Mexico, Dr. Willman was awarded one of the first NIH Physician-Scientist Awards in 1984. Her research focuses on the use of genomic, nextgeneration sequencing and computational technologies to identify cancer-causing DNA mutations that can lead to new cancer diagnostics and therapeutics. Dr. Willman has served as director and CEO of the National Cancer Institute (NCI)–designated University of New Mexico Comprehensive Cancer Center (UNMCCC) in Albuquerque since November 1999. During that time, she spearheaded the development of the center's clinical, research, education, and community outreach programs, which ultimately led to the center's NCI designation in 2015 as one of the top 3% of US cancer centers. In that role, she leads approximately 1000 physicians, scientists, and staff members in providing state-of-the-art treatment to all New Mexicans affected by cancer. In recognition of her leadership skills and research discoveries, Dr. Willman has received numerous awards, including awards from the NCI, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, among many others. She also has the unique distinction of being 1 of only 8 female directors among the 71 NCI-designated cancer center directors across the country. “I've seen firsthand the incredible impact she's had on patients in New Mexico,” says fellow cancer center director Karen Knudsen, MBA, PhD, executive vice president of oncology services for Jefferson Health and enterprise director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia. “She's very passionate about the community she serves, and she motivates her team because they all understand that sense of purpose.” Dr. Willman has used her tenure as UNMCCC director to lead efforts to improve cancer care for all New Mexicans, including Hispanics, Native Americans, rural households, and other underserved communities. “Prior to her leadership of the cancer center, there was very little advanced, coordinated cancer care in New Mexico. She built that center from the ground up,” says Dr. Knudsen. “She built alliances with key stakeholders and gained the trust of tribal leaders.” Having worked with Dr. Willman on numerous activities and initiatives, Dr. Knudsen also chairs the UNMCCC's external advisory board and pays annual visits to New Mexico in that role. NCI-designated cancer center directors also regularly communicate on a variety of issues. “When Cheryl speaks, we listen,” Dr. Knudsen adds. “I really appreciate her transparent style and how she aligns to a very clear mission.” Addressing disparities in cancer research and treatment has been a major goal for Dr. Willman throughout her career. “I run a cancer center in a region where we have tremendous health disparities,” she says. “One of our biggest challenges in the cancer field is determining how we disseminate the quality cancer medicine we provide at NCI centers to everyone.” To that end, Dr. Willman has led UNMCCC to be the first of 2 funded centers in the NCI's Participant Engagement and Cancer Genome Sequencing Centers Network. The program's goal is to directly engage patients with cancer and patients who have survived cancer to participate in rigorous cancer genome sequencing programs addressing knowledge gaps in rare, highly lethal, and high-disparity cancers. Within the network, UNMCCC will specifically focus on the engagement and participation of Native Americans of Southwestern tribal nations in cancer genome sequencing. “The results will go to patients, empowering them to find groups of people like them and become advocates,” Dr. Willman says. Dr. Willman has served as chair of the leukemia research committees for the NCI Southwest Oncology Group and NCI Children's Oncology Group. She has led teams of scientists and physicians focused on a variety of studies, including one on the role of multidrug resistance in leukemia in which researchers characterized specific pathways of resistance that led to clinical trials of drugs designed to overcome resistance, making major advances in the field. Dr. Willman also has served as coleader of a consortium for the NCI's Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments Program (the pediatric component of The Cancer Genome Atlas [TCGA] Program) in high-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). This consortium led to comprehensive genome sequencing of nearly 5000 patients with childhood ALL. It also led to the major scientific discovery of a previously unknown form of ALL, which researchers classified as “Philadelphia chromosome-like ALL,” and to the mapping of underlying genomic mutations in tyrosine kinases, or genes regulating tyrosine kinase signaling pathways, in this subtype. “These are patients who had a survival rate of less than 20%; they were being treated with really intensive chemotherapy and still dying,” Dr. Willman says. “This form of ALL has hundreds of different mutations and now accounts for about 15% of leukemias in children and 30% of leukemias in adolescents and young adults.” These discoveries led to 6 national clinical trials that are testing kinase inhibitor therapies and/or incorporating genomic predictors for risk stratification. In 2015, the US Food and Drug Administration approved genetic screening for these patients at diagnosis in order to glean which mutation should be targeted for treatment. Research also revealed a very high prevalence of Philadelphia chromosome-like ALL in patients with Hispanic and/or Native American genetic ancestry who had worse outcomes. Such disparities were always assumed to be caused by socioeconomic factors, but the findings led researchers to hypothesize that the spectrum of genetic diseases leading to cancers can vary dramatically on the basis of patients' ethnicities, Dr. Willman notes. That finding was concerning, particularly in light of the fact that 95% of cases studied to date by TCGA have been in non-Hispanic whites. Hispanics account for just 3% of genome sequencing, whereas Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Hawaiian Pacific Islanders account for a mere 0.25%, according to Dr. Willman. These statistics helped prompt the development of the NCI's Participant Engagement and Cancer Genome Sequencing Centers Network. Another of Dr. Willman's important research achievements was the discovery that the rare and often fatal disease known as Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) is a type of cancer, specifically a clonal neoplastic disorder related to BRAF and other targetable mutations. The result was significantly improved treatment options and outcomes for the disease. She collaborated on this work with Gary Gilliland, MD, PhD, former director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and many others. Dr. Willman became involved in LCH research in the early 1990s through the efforts of Greek businessman Apostolos (Paul) Kontoyannis, whose son, Nikolas, had the disease. Dedicated to finding a cure, Kontoyannis sought out scientists worldwide with expertise in related diseases and paid for them to attend the Nikolas Symposium in Greece to develop research collaborations. Many of the people in attendance were parents of children with LCH. “It was a very powerful, transformative experience for me. I saw an early example of the advocacy of families who were empowered to work on a rare disease,” she says. Dr. Willman manages to take full advantage of the New Mexican outdoors by regularly skiing, golfing, and playing tennis. Also a gourmet cook, Dr. Willman has trained at several cooking schools in France and Italy. Reflecting on her childhood in a small farming community in central Indiana, Dr. Willman acknowledges the impact of her experiences with her father's course of disease on her career and research choices. She discovered more examples of patients with melanoma from the 1970s who like her father, had been given an immune adjuvant after surgery that triggered very strong immune responses. “It was the beginning of today's modern immunotherapies.”