Our Team

Paul Meyers is a pediatric oncologist focusing his career on studying and treating pediatric and adolescent patients with various sarcomas. He currently is the chief of the pediatric sarcoma clinic and vice chairman of clinical affairs at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He has authored and co-authored over 200 publications about sarcomas, served as president of the Connective Tissue Oncology Society and is an active member of the National Cancer Institute’s Physician Data Query Pediatric Board.

In addition he is the founding medical director for Happiness Is Camping, a summer camp for children with Cancer. Dr. Meyers has been listed in New York Magazine’s Top Doctors from (2002-2018). He received his medical degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Michael Kinnaman received his MD from Stony Brook University School of Medicine, completed his pediatric residency at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, and his fellowship in pediatric hematology/oncology at the joint Memorial Sloan Kettering/Weill Cornell Medical Center program.

He is current a member of the Pediatric Sarcoma Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) where he specializes in taking care of children, adolescents, and young adults diagnosed with pediatric sarcomas. He is a member of the Iacobuzio-Donahue Lab Group, with research efforts focused on describing and detailing the clonal evolution of cancer cells in pediatric sarcomas.

Dr. Kinnaman has been the recipient of a number of young investigator awards to fund his research, with support from Hyundai Hope on Wheels, the Rally Foundation,  ASCO/Conquer Cancer Foundation, and the QuadW Foundation. He has also been awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH)/MSKCC K12 Paul Calabresi Career Development Award for Clinical Oncology.

Damon is the Chair of the Department of Individualized Cancer Management and Clinical Co-Leader of the Evolutionary Therapy Center of Excellence at Moffitt.  He is a Senior Member at Moffitt Cancer Center, and a Professor of Oncologic Sciences at the University of South Florida. He lead and helped build the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation’s pediatric phase I consortium, the Sunshine Project.

A graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, OH, Damon served a combined pediatric residency program at Boston Children’s Hospital-Harvard Medical School and Boston Medical Center-Boston University School of Medicine. He completed his fellowship training in pediatric hematology/oncology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and in Dr. Mike Dyer’s lab.  Dr. Reed is the Vice Chair of the COG Bone Tumor Committee and the Vice President of the Connective Tissue Oncology Society.

Dr. Grohar received his BS in chemistry at Villanova University. He subsequently earned both a PhD in chemistry and a MD at Wayne State University. He completed residency training in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University and fellowship training in pediatric hematology-oncology in the joint program of Johns Hopkins and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), where he was chief fellow.  

He joined the faculty at Vanderbilt University as an assistant professor of pediatrics before being recruited to the Van Andel Research Institute as an associate professor. He was subsequently recruited to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as the Director of Translational Research in the Center for Childhood Cancer Research.

He holds the Kelly and Chad Punchard Endowed Chair for Translational Sarcoma Research. Dr. Grohar is internationally recognized for his work on Ewing sarcoma. His lab has primarily focused on the therapeutic targeting of the EWS-FLI1 transcription factor for Ewing sarcoma. His work is truly bench to bedside and he is currently the PI of a clinical trial targeting EWS-FLI1 that is open and recruiting patients. He has received numerous grant awards including federal and foundation support. In addition, he has been generously supported by philanthropy.

He holds national leadership positions in the Children’s Oncology Group (COG), specifically as the vice-chair for biology for bone tumors, chair of the Ewing sarcoma biology committee and co-chair of combined sarcoma biology. He serves on a number of advisory boards and is an ad hoc reviewer for numerous journals and funding agencies. Dr. Grohar has had the honor of being invited to give lectures across the United States and in Europe.

Dr. Ian Davis, MD, PhD, is the G. Denman Hammond Professor of Childhood Cancer and Chief of the Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology at UNC-Chapel Hill.Following undergraduate studies in biochemistry and molecular biology atNorthwestern University, Dr. Davis received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago and MD from Northwestern University Medical School. He then completed pediatric residency and chief residency at Boston Children’s Hospital and pediatric hematology oncology training at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Boston Childrens. Dr. Davis’s lab has had a primary focus on Ewing sarcoma and other solid tumors employing cutting-edge genomic and proteomic techniques in human and animal models. He had had a longstanding interest in the biological mechanisms that underlie the central oncogene of Ewing sarcoma, EWSR1-FLI1.

In addition to his role as a leading researcher, Dr. Davis is the Co-leader of theCancer Genetics Program at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and is the UNC director for the Unified Program for Therapeutic Discovery in Children fellow training program. His work has earned him recognition, including the Dick Vitale Pediatric Cancer Research Fund All-Start award from The V Foundation in2023, the Martin D. Abeloff V Scholar Award, and the Rita Allen Foundation Scholar award. Dr. Davis's dedication and groundbreaking contributions to childhood cancer research and patient care exemplify his commitment to improving the lives of young patients and their families.

Jessie Hennessy is a certified pediatric nurse practitioner who received her bachelors degree in arts from University of Wisconsin – Madison.

She went on to receive a bachelors of science in nursing and masters of science in nursing at New York University, focusing her studies on pediatrics. She began work in 2014 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on the Pediatric Sarcoma Service where she continues to work today.