2024 Mentorship Award
ASTRO is pleased to award the 2024 Mentorship Award to Felix Feng, MD, David Gius, MD, PhD, FASTRO, and Vinita Takiar, MD, PhD. The ASTRO Mentorship Award recognizes extraordinary mentors in radiation oncology who demonstrate outstanding commitment to the professional development of their mentees as clinicians, educators and researchers.
Mentors play a critical role in the development of the next generation of radiation oncologists and radiation scientists. The Mentorship Award signals the commitment of ASTRO to fostering the careers of the next generation of radiation oncology professionals by recognizing individuals who have dedicated their time, energy and expertise to advance the careers of others. Learn more about this year’s awardees:
Felix Feng, MD, is a Professor of Radiation Oncology, Urology and Medicine at University of California San Francisco, Vice Chair for Translational Research in the Department of Radiation Oncology, Director of the Benioff Initiative for Prostate Cancer Research and the Associate Director of Clinical Translational Research at UCSF. He has been a physician for 14 years and has had success in many ways across multiple fields. However, Dr. Feng is most proud of the research and careers of his students and mentees.“I think that the magnitude of what we’ve accomplished is not measured in just what we have done, but it’s measured in terms of the kind of collective efforts of everyone that you’ve helped along the way,” said Dr. Feng. Dr. Feng has had many mentors over the course of his career, each guiding him through different paths in his career.
Dr. Feng makes it very clear that there are two things you need when working in medicine: a dream and a team that can bring that vison to life. He has brought much of his vision to life but not without the help of his mentors and that is exactly what he is doing and continues to do with his own mentees.
David Gius, MD, PhD, is currently the Assistant Dean for Research and a Professor of Radiation Oncology at the Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine as well as the Associate Cancer Center Director for Translational Research, Mays Cancer Center at The University of Texas Health San Antonio - MD Anderson Cancer Center. He also co-directs the Mitochondrial Medicine Center in one of his roles in the Dean’s Office of Research.
Through all his accomplishments in these roles and across his 32 years in medicine, Dr. Gius says that he is most proud of the fact that 24 of his trainees are faculty members, 13 are full professors, and 12 are funded cancer researchers.
Dr. Gius attributes his mentorship success to what he has learned from his mentors Ted Lawrence, PhD, Allen Lichter, MD, and Carlos Perez, MD. “They taught me the importance of a legacy of mentorship, not just [prioritizing] seeing patients and research,” says Dr. Gius. This legacy is also passed on to his mentees, and one of his former mentees said, “The amount of time he invested in my grants, my career, and my training as a physician scientist was beyond generous. I hope I am half as good with my mentees as he was to me.”
Vinita Takiar, MD, PhD, is the Endowed Chair and Professor/Staff Physician at the University of Cincinnati. She has continuously supported her mentees throughout all challenges they have faced, and her mentees know that they can count on her in whatever they may face in the future.
Dr. Takiar says that the most rewarding part of her career has been guiding her mentees through various challenges to their goals. In her 14 years as a physician and her time in medical school before that, she was guided by her own mentors, Gerhard Giebisch, MD, Michael Caplan, MD, PhD, as well as her mom. “Your mom doesn’t teach you biochemistry, but she teaches you how to balance work and life and that’s just as valuable,” said Dr. Takiar. She said that becoming a mentor is not something you plan to do, it just happens. She loves being a mentor because she gets to teach people and then watch them take what they have learned to the next level and achieve their goals. “You have to listen just as much as you want to teach,” says Dr. Takiar.
The awardees will be recognized during the Awards Ceremony on October 1 during the Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.