YCC Awards & Honors
The annual spring awards recognize excellence in research, clinical care, leadership, and service and are attended by many of the more than 300 members of the Yale Cancer Center as well as clinical leaders from Smilow Cancer Hospitals. These awards, once called the YCC Conclave Awards, result from internal nominations sought by the YCC / Smilow community. A January 2026 ceremony celebrated accomplishments in 2025. A full list of annual award winners from previous years is below.
In addition to these awards, researchers, physician-scientists, and clinicians are celebrated with honors from dozens of outside organizations, foundations, associations, and more. Many of those are publicized on YCC and Smilow social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitter, LinkedIn as well as in the DirectConnect newsletter emailed twice a month during the academic year and monthly in July and August. Those awards are listed below the Annual Award list on this page.
YCC Annual Awards
| Year | Clinical Excellence | Lifetime Achievement | Class of ’61 | Basic Science | Clinical Science | Translational Science | Population Science | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | John Kunstman | Mario Sznol | Michaela Dinan & Yansheng Liu | Diane Krause & Stephanie Halene | David Braun | Luisa Escobar-Hoyos & Peter Glazer | Xuehong Zhang | Ruth McCorkle Oncology Advanced Practice Provider, Karen Hammond; Teaching & Mentorship Excellence, Anne Chiang; Collaborative Excellence, Andrea Silber; Service Excellence, Tania Galindo; and YCC Director’s Award, Renee Gaudette. |
| 2024 | Aarti Bhatia | David F. Stern | Seth Herzon & Smita Krishnaswamy | Franziska Bleichert | Michael Cecchini & Jill Lacy | Rong Fan | Xiaomei Ma | Ruth McCorkle Oncology Advanced Practice Provider, Ismaele 'Izzy' Jacques; Teaching and Mentorship Excellence, Karin Finberg; Leadership in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Qin Yan; Service Excellence, Sara Raboin |
| 2023 | Kelly Olino & James Clune | Edward L. Snyder | Nadya Dimitrova & Sarah Goldberg | Jason Sheltzer | Pamela Kunz | Katerina Politi | Ilana Richman | - |
| 2022 | Saral Mehra & Manju Prasad | Dan DiMaio | Nikhil Joshi & Kurt Schalper | Joseph Craft & Nikhil Joshi | Joseph Kim | Rachel Perry | Michael Leapman & Sajid Khan | - |
| 2021 | Nikolai Podoltsev & Jennifer Moliterno | Richard Edelson | Rong Fan & Shangqin Guo | Marcus Bosenberg & Qin Yan | Lajos Pusztai | Fay Rogers | Elizabeth Claus | Mentorship Excellence, Alfred Lee; Teaching Excellence, David F. Stern; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Faye Rogers; Ruth McCorkle Award, Carol Staugaard |
| 2020 | Shari Damast & Thomas Prebet | David Fischer | Ranjit Bindra & Don Nguyen | Akiko Iwasaki | Roy S. Herbst | Aaron Ring, Peter Glazer, Ranjit Bindra | Nicole Deziel | Mentorship Excellence, Cary Gross; Teaching Excellence, Paul Eder; Ruth McCorkle Award, Jacqueline Dibble |
| 2019 | Debra Brandt & Kevin Kim | Ruth Halaban | Qin Yan | Sidi Chen | Barbara Burtness & Daniel Petrylak | Lieping Chen | Linda Niccolai | Ruth McCorkle Award, Raymond Lennox |
| 2018 | Andrea Silber & Veronica Chiang | I. George Miller | Katerina Politi | Mark Lemmon | Alessandro Santin | Rachel Perry | Nina Kadan-Lottick | - |
| 2017 | Scott Gettinger | Ruth McCorkle | Valentina Greco | Katerina Politi & Scott Gettinger | Ranjit Bindra | James B. Yu | - | |
| 2016 | Stuart Seropian | Vincent DeVita | Joseph Contessa | Richard Kibbey | Madhav Dhodapkar | Jeffrey Townsend | Shi-Yi Wang | - |
| 2015 | Elena Ratner | Sherman M. Weissman | Melinda Irwin | Douglas E. Brash | Anees Chagpar | Craig Crews | Melinda Irwin | - |
| 2014 | Nina Horowitz | Sara Rockwell | - | Valentina Greco | Meena Moran | Narendra Wajapeyee | Ted Holford | - |
| 2013 | Stephan Ariyan | Bernard Forget | - | Don Nguyen | Mario Sznol | Murat Gunel | Cary Gross & James Yu | - |
| 2012 | Leonard Farber & Arthur Levy | Peter Schwartz | - | Ruth Halaban | Mario Sznol | Susan Mayne | - | |
| 2011 | Roy Decker | Alan Sartorelli | - | - | - | - | - | Rick Lifton and Ruth McCorkle |
| 2010 | Dennis Copper | William Prusoff | - | - | - | - | - | Benjamin Toll and Frank Slack |
| 2009 | Ronald Salem | - | - | - | - | - | - | Frank Slack and Joanne Weidhaas |