Faculty and Staff

Vinay Puduvalli, M.D.
Co-Director
Chair, Neuro-Oncology Department
Co-Director, Brain Tumor Research Program

Vinay K. Puduvalli, M.D., holds the Beau Biden Endowed Chair in Brain Cancer Research and serves as the leader of the MD Anderson Brain Cancer Core Grant Program. Dr. Puduvalli’s research focuses on patient-oriented research to develop new treatments for brain malignancies using a combined approach of targeted therapies, innovative clinical trial designs and rational combinations of anticancer agents. His clinical expertise includes care of patients with brain and spine malignancies, as well as neurological complications of cancer.

Dr. Puduvalli’s laboratory research focuses on identifying vulnerabilities in gliomas that can overcome tumor heterogeneity in order to target these with novel agents using a variety of pre-clinical models with a focus on stress response and energy metabolism in gliomas. In a translational context, he has led several institutional and multi-center clinical studies involving epigenetic therapies and novel targeted agents. He has served as a mentor for students, residents, fellows and junior and senior faculty over the past two decades. He serves in national leadership roles in the Society for Neuro-Oncology and has served on advisory boards, review boards and study sections for national and international federal granting and industry agencies.

Frederick Lang, M.D.
Co-Director
Chair, Neurosurgery Department
Co-Director, Brain Tumor Research Program
Principal Investigator, Brain Cancer SPORE

Frederick Lang, M.D., received his medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine and completed a residency in neurosurgery at New York University Medical Center and a fellowship in neurosurgical oncology at MD Anderson. Dr. Lang is a board-certified neurosurgeon with a clinical focus on brain tumors located in eloquent brain regions. As a physician-scientist, his research focuses on novel biological therapies including viral and cellular approaches for brain tumors. He has led multiple clinical trials.

Dr. Lang is a past president of the Society for Neuro-Oncology and a past chair of the AANS/CNS Section on Tumors. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Jim Ray, Ph.D.
Co-Director
Executive Director, Belfer Neurodegeneration Consortium

Before joining the Belfer Neurodegeneration Consortium in April 2015, Jim Ray, Ph.D., was director of CNS Research at Takeda Pharmaceuticals and led several drug discovery projects from basic research into development for schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, autism and other central nervous system disorders. He joined Takeda in 2013 as part of their acquisition of the biotech start-up Envoy Therapeutics, where he was senior director and responsible for developing both a pipeline of CNS therapeutics as well as a platform technology. Prior to Envoy Therapeutics, Dr. Ray spent 11 years at Merck, where he led multiple research projects in Alzheimer’s disease, including MK-7622, Merck’s investigational M1 muscarinic receptor potentiator. He earned his Ph.D. in neuroscience from Washington University Medical School and has 62 publications and 25 patents.

Jian Hu, Ph.D.
Scientific Director
Professor, Cancer Biology
Executive Member, Brain Tumor Center

Jian Hu, Ph.D., serves as the director of the Cancer Biology Program and faculty president of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School. Throughout his career, Dr. Hu has mentored numerous graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and currently directs three graduate courses: Basic and Translational Cancer Biology (Cancer Biology Core Course), Biology of Neurological Diseases, and Cancer Neuroscience. He has been recognized for his excellence in teaching, receiving the prestigious John P. McGovern Award for Outstanding Teaching in both 2019 and 2022. Dr. Hu leads a well-funded and highly productive research lab and has received numerous prestigious awards including the Andrew Sabin Family Fellow Award, Sontag Foundation Distinguished Scientist Award, NIH MERIT Award, UT Rising STARs Award, Sidney Kimmel Scholar Award, and the Dallas/Fort Worth Living Legend Faculty Achievement Award in Basic Science, among others.

Elizabeth Hileman, Ph.D.
Director, Research Planning & Development

Elizabeth “Liz” Hileman, Ph.D., oversees all operations of the Cancer Neuroscience Program. She holds a B.S. in chemistry from Texas A&M University and a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, specializing in pharmacology and biochemistry. Her diverse career in biomedical research and administration began after graduation at MD Anderson's Office of Technology Commercialization, where she partnered with faculty to manage their intellectual property portfolios and guide them through the complex commercialization process. She later held roles securing external funding for research programs and partnering with outside pharmaceutical companies in the VP Office for Translational Research to promote and drive research initiatives within MD Anderson.

During her time at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Dr. Hileman established an innovative Writing Studio providing comprehensive support to graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty in areas such as grant writing, biosketch preparation, manuscript writing, CV and resume development, and dissertation writing. She also implemented a novel workshop series on versatile career options for Ph.D.s featuring outside speakers who utilized their doctoral training in a wide array of fields.

Dr. Hileman is deeply committed to mentoring the next generation of biomedical scientists. She serves as vice president on the Board of the Houston chapter of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) and frequently gives workshops on various career development topics to predoc and postdoc trainees across the Texas Medical Center.

Stephanie L. Jenkins
Program Manager

Stephanie Jenkins has built a distinguished career at MD Anderson spanning nearly two decades. Her professional journey began in her home state of Louisiana, where she served as an executive secretary in the Section of Cardiology at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans. In 2006, Stephanie embarked on her pivotal career at MD Anderson joining the Department of Neurosurgery as a senior administrative assistant, where she provided crucial support to faculty and advanced practice nurses. Her exceptional performance led to a promotion to executive assistant in 2012, where she assumed expanded responsibilities in support of the chair of Neurosurgery. Stephanie's expertise and dedication were further recognized in 2021 with her advancement to program coordinator, overseeing administrative operations for the Glioblastoma Moon Shots Program™.

Throughout her career progression, Stephanie has consistently expanded her expertise and honed her leadership skills demonstrating remarkable growth with each new role. In her many roles she has supervised staff, had oversight of and led program-specific events, and provided administrative support for each area.

In her current role for the Cancer Neuroscience Program, Stephanie provides financial and programmatic management as well as operational support for the program. This involves award set-up, reconciliations, financial reporting and educating various personnel across several departments on financial guidelines.

Stephanie's unwavering commitment to excellence has earned her numerous accolades throughout her career including the impressive Employee of the Year award, multiple performance honors and consistent recognition for her outstanding work. She is an invited member of the National Society of Leadership and Success and a member of the Organization for Women at MD Anderson.

Frank Furnari, Ph.D.
Professor, School of Medicine, University of California San Diego 

Shawn Hervey-Jumper, M.D.
Professor, University of California San Francisco

Kevin Krull, Ph.D.
Chair, Psychology and Biobehavioral Sciences, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

Shane Liddelow, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Neuroscience Institute, NYU Langone Medical Center

Susan Lutgendorf, Ph.D.
Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa

Minesh Mehta, M.D.
Chief of Radiation Oncology, Baptist Health Miami Cancer Institute

Michelle Monje, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University

Theodore Price, Ph.D.
Professor, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas

Rosalind Segal, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Neurobiology and Dean for Graduate Education, Harvard Medical School

Leanne Williams, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University

David Arons, J.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer
National Brain Tumor Society
Newton, Massachusetts

Howard Elias
Chair of the Board, TEGNA
Retired Chief Customer Officer at Dell Technologies
Donor to the Cancer Neuroscience Program
Austin, Texas

Harris Eyre, M.D., Ph.D.
Head of Neuro-Policy and Senior Fellow
Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University
Houston, Texas

Lance Kawaguchi
Chairman, Breton Technology
Group Sustainability
Middle East & Australia

W. Eddie Martucci, Ph.D.
Co-Founder and Former CEO
Akili Inc.
Boston, Massachusetts