Galway-native Dr. Róisín O’Cearbhaill is a medical oncologist and Research Director of the Gynecologic Medical Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), with a joint appointment at Weill Cornell Medical College.

A committed advocate of excellence in patient care, Róisín serves as the director of the Patient and Family Centered Care Grant initiative. She is also the vice-chair of the Investigational New Drug/Device committee at MSKCC. She has extensive clinical and research experience in the treatment of gynecological cancers, with her primary focus on developing novel targeted, cellular- and immune-based therapies to improve outcomes for women with gynecologic cancers and other solid tumors.

Even throughout the difficulties of the 2020 Covid-19 outbreak, Róisín recalls a “great time of unity.”

“Hospitals worked together, we took patients from other hospitals, as did they. There was a real sense in New York that we were fighting this pandemic together,” she told the Irish Times.

Born and raised in Ballyburke, Galway, Róisín received a first-class honors medical degree from the National University of Ireland, Galway, where both her parents and parents-in-law taught. She has a love of languages, completing her first year of medical school through Irish (Gaelic) and spending her fourth year studying in Grenoble, France, on an ERASMUS scholarship. She completed a medical oncology residency at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital in Dublin, incorporating a six-month senior residency at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and began her fellowship training with the Royal College of Physicians, Ireland.

In 2008 she was awarded a scholarship by the Irish Society of Medical Oncology to complete a two-year advanced fellowship at MSKCC in New York. On completion, she was appointed as a consultant and has stayed since. She travels home to Ireland frequently with her husband and three children to see family and friends there and is currently preparing for her Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) at NUIG.

She is passionate about supporting young researchers and facilitating access to clinical trials for children at home, so she recently joined the board of the Children’s Foundation for Medical Research. This foundation raises vital funds for the National Children’s Research Center in Dublin. Róisín is very proud to be Irish, even if it means continually explaining how to spell her name! ♦