2025 Travel Award Winners

2025 Cancer Immunotherapy Winter School

SITC will host its sixth annual Cancer Immunotherapy Winter School on Feb. 11–14, 2025 in Austin, TX & Virtually.

2025 Travel Award Winners

The Cancer Immunotherapy Winter School Travel Awards are intended for individuals who will attend the program in person. The award amount, up to $1,000, will be reimbursed for eligible expenses associated with travel to attend the 2025 Cancer Immunotherapy Winter School program in person and/or registration for the Cancer Immunotherapy Winter School program.

We are pleased to announce the 2025 Cancer Immunotherapy Winter School Travel Award winners below. Thank you to everyone who applied.

Two of the five travel awards will be reserved for those who self-identify as individuals from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in the Biomedical Sciences according to the NIH definition.The information collected in response to the self-identifying process will only be viewed by SITC staff and Cancer Immunotherapy Winter School program organizers.

Program Statement on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) understands the value of diversity, equity and inclusion and is committed to closing gaps within all facets of the organization, as well as ones in the field of immuno-oncology and biomedical sciences. Since 2018, SITC has been proactively following the NIH Statement on Diversity for those in underrepresented Populations in the U.S. Biomedical Sciences across planning, solicitation and implementation of all programming, including SITC’s Cancer Immunotherapy Winter School. In 2021, SITC formed the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Task Force to ensure participation from nationally underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, individuals with disabilities, individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds and women from biomedical sciences throughout all society programs and initiatives.

Alfredo Chua, MD

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Dr. Alfredo Chua is a medical oncologist from the Philippines with a specialized focus on solid tumors and lymphomas. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Cancer Sciences at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center - State University of New York at Buffalo, where his research focuses on cancer health disparities, immunotherapy, survivorship, and cancer epidemiology. His dissertation investigates the distinct responses of minoritized racial and ethnic groups to immune checkpoint inhibitors. Dr. Chua’s academic journey began with completing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from the University of the Philippines followed by a Doctor of Medicine and Master of Clinical Medicine degrees from the same institution. He completed his Residency in Internal Medicine and Fellowship in Medical Oncology training at the Philippine General Hospital, the largest tertiary hospital in the Philippines. Throughout his career, Dr. Chua has actively contributed to the field through numerous presentations at prestigious national and international conferences, including an oral presentation at an American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) conference. His work has been published in high-impact journals such as the Journal of Clinical Oncology and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Chua is also a member of several professional organizations, including the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC).


Valentina Grillo Alvarado, B.S.

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Valentina Grillo-Alvarado earned her B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. She received her initial research training in the lab of Professor José García-Arrarás, PhD and was supported by the NIH Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) Program. As an undergraduate, Valentina pursued additional research opportunities, including internships at Brown University with the Leadership Alliance under Professor Ruhul Abid, MD, PhD, and as an Amgen Scholar at Stanford University with Professor Irving Weismann, MD and mentor Gunsagar Gulati, MD, PhD. She is currently a fourth-year PhD candidate in the Molecular and Cellular Program at the University of Washington, Seattle. In 2020, she joined the labs of Professors Christine Quietsch, PhD, and Doug Fowler, PhD where she worked on high-throughput assays to profile insulator sequences in plants and oncogenic protein variants.
 
Following a career break after her mother's passing from lung cancer, Valentina realized first-hand the urgent need to study and harness the immune system for highly specific cancer therapies. This experience led her to switch her thesis to work with Professor Bruce Torbett, PhD, MSPH. Valentina’s research focus is on discovering AML vulnerabilities along the hematopoietic differentiation spectrum.  This knowledge is vital for informing innovative immune-engineering strategies to combat various diseases, particularly blood cancers like AML. Valentina is grateful to receive a travel award for her first formal education in immunotherapy. The 2025 SITC Cancer Immunotherapy Winter School will provide her with foundational knowledge in cancer immunology to guide her thesis project and make connections with leading researchers in the field.

Catherine Kirkpatrick, B.S.

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Catherine Kirkpatrick graduated Magna Cum Laude and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa with a B.S. degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. As an undergraduate, she gained valuable experience in molecular biology research. After graduating, she contributed to COVID-19 population health research at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Currently, Catherine is in her fourth year of the MD/PhD program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she conducts her PhD research in Dr. Y. William Lu’s lab in the Department of Pathology. Her research focuses on unraveling new mechanisms of T cell exhaustion in the tumor microenvironment using advanced single-cell sequencing techniques. She recently published a review article discussing the role of CD4+ T cells in cancer and cancer immunotherapy.

Livia Onofrio, MD

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Dr. Livia Onofrio earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Medicine and Surgery with full marks in 2017 from La Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. Her thesis in immunology, conducted at Charité University in Berlin through an Erasmus grant, marked the beginning of her academic and research career. As a Medical Oncology resident, she gained significant experience in both pre-clinical and clinical settings, contributing to academic lab research in Italy.

Her professional development expanded through hands-on involvement in clinical research at the IRCCS European Institute of Oncology (IEO) in Milan, where she worked as a sub-investigator in Phase I clinical trials. Additionally, she gained in-depth experience in managing immunotherapy-related side effects as a resident fellow in Phase II/III trials in the Division of Melanoma, Sarcomas, and Rare Tumors.

Driven by her ambition to pursue a career in Academic Oncology and Translational Research, Dr Onofrio moved to Manchester (UK) in May 2024 for a 6-month research fellowship at the National Biomarker Centre/Cancer Research UK (CRUK). Thanks to a grant from the University of Manchester, she served as an observer with the Upper-GI and Lung NET Team at The Christie Foundation NHS Trust. Her project focuses on liquid biopsy and cfDNA isolation, aiming to identify predictive markers of response and resistance to immunotherapy in gastroesophageal tumors. She will defend her final thesis in November 2024 at the University Tor Vergata of Rome.


Bhavya Singh, MSc

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Bhavya Singh is a PhD student studying immunology and cancer biology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Her research centers on investigating the spatial dynamics of immune cells and intracellular innate immune regulators in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC), with the goal of understanding the key drivers of immunosuppression. Prior to her PhD studies, Bhavya was at Weill Cornell Medicine, where she worked on the computational sub-classification of B-cell lymphomas. She received her master's in Chemical Biology from McMaster University in Canada, where she studied succession in the infant gut microbiome over the course of solid food introduction.