Podcast/Video Interviews by Stephen Ibaraki

A Chat with Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD: Surgical oncologist and cancer researcher; Richard E. Wilson Professor of Surgery Emerita at Harvard Medical School; former Director of National Institutes of Health (NIH) and President-Elect, National Academy of Medicine

This week, Stephen Ibaraki has an exclusive interview with Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD.

Monica M. Bertagnolli, M.D., is a surgical oncologist and cancer researcher currently serving as the Richard E. Wilson Professor of Surgery Emerita at Harvard Medical School and a Senior Fellow in Healthcare Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. From November 2023 - January 2025 she was the 17th director of the National Institutes of Health. Prior to this, she was the director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Chief of Surgical Oncology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Throughout her career, Dr. Bertagnolli has been at the forefront of the field of translational oncology. Over the past decade, she has championed collaborative initiatives to enable a learning healthcare system by transforming the data infrastructure for clinical research. Dr. Bertagnolli was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2021 and in 2025 she was chosen to be the Academy's 11th President, a position she will assume in July, 2026.

Dr. Bertagnolli graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree and attended medical school at the University of Utah. She trained in surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital and was a research fellow in tumor immunology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.