Webinars & Events

Mentor Program

New Investigators Mentor Program

The ISEH Mentor Program will connect early-career scientists (students and postdocs) with established leaders in the field of hematology during pivotal stages of their professional development. Through structured, confidential mentorship, the program aims to foster meaningful, long-term relationships that support career growth, encourage knowledge sharing, and strengthen the ISEH community. As an ISEH member benefit, the program will provide guidance, connection, and professional support to help participants navigate their careers with confidence.

In our first year of the program, each mentor will be matched to one mentee. If you are not selected this year, your application may be retained for consideration in a future program cycle. Apply by Friday, 31 July.

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Eligibility

PhD/Graduate Student or Postdoctoral Fellow
ISEH Associate Member

Meet Our Participating Mentors

Constanze Bonifer, PhD - Australia

Senior Principal Research Fellow, Blood Development
Murdoch Children's Research Institute

Constanze Bonifer is interested in the question of how transcription factors program chromatin in hematopoietic development and in leukaemia. Her work studies (i) how gene regulatory networks (GRNs) and enhancers define cellular identities in normal development and in disease, (ii) how signalling processes regulate the transition of one GRN to another and (iii) how this process is subverted in AML. In 2024 she moved from Birmingham to Melbourne to work on humen hematopoietic stem cell development at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. In 2025 she was awarded the Donald Metcalf Award of the ISEH in recognition of her life-long contribution to the field.

"I am honoured to be chosen to serve as mentor for ISEH Early Career Researchers. I have lived and worked in several countries and my research has covered multiple fields. I have served in national and international scientific review panels and have held leadership positions in my own institutions. I hope that this extensive experience will be of use to those embarking on a research career."

Marieke Essers, PhD - Germany

Division Head, German Cancer Resarch Center (DKFZ)
Group Leader, HI-STEM

Marieke Essers is a division head at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and group leader at the Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Technologies and Experimental Medicine (HI-STEM) in Heidelberg. After a master in Medical Biology she performed her PhD on FOXO transcription factors in stress responses at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. During her postdoc at the ISREC in Lausanne she discovered the activation of HSCs by IFNa. In 2010 she established her own independent lab at HI-STEM and the DKFZ, where she got tenured in 2019. Her group aims to understand the impact of inflammation on stem cells and their niche, and the role this plays in disease development in the bone marrow.

"As mentor and coordinator of mentoring programs such as TRTH and the German Stem Cell Network mentoring program it has been very rewarding to support young scientists to build a successful career in hematology that fits their personal visions, strengths and needs. I’m very keen and looking forward to bring my mentoring skills and experience to ISEH and help early career ISEH members with their next steps."

Brian Huntly, PhD - UK

Head of Department and Professor of Leukemia Stem Cell Biology
Cambridge Stem Cell Institute

I am Head of Department and Professor of Leukaemia Stem Cell Biology at the University of Cambridge Department of Haematology and also chair the clinical Haematology Department at Cambridge University Hospitals where I am an active clinician. My other roles include President Elect of the European Hematology Association and Co-Lead of the Cambridge Haematological Malignancies Virtual Institute, one of the largest concentrations of haematology researchers in Europe. My lab uses functional, genomic and proteomic techniques in mouse and cell line models and human normal and primary tumour tissue to study how normal stem and progenitor cell function is subverted in the evolution of haematological malignancies, particularly acute myeloid leukaemia and malignant lymphoma.

"I have a strong interest in career development and believe that good mentorship is critical for it. I bring experience of mentoring researchers who have gone on to very successful independent careers. I have used experiences and insights gained on serving on and chairing many national and international fellowship and grant award panels and from scientific advisory boards and site visit panels for major institutions across Europe to help guide my mentees."

Ulrich Steidl, MD, PhD - USA

Director, Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center
Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Ulrich Steidl graduated from the University of Heidelberg Medical School and the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, Germany. He trained as a resident physician at the University of Duesseldorf, Germany, and as a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. He joined the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY in 2008, where he currently serves as the director of Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center and holds appointments as Professor and Chair of the Department of Cell Biology, as well as Professor of Oncology, and of Medicine. Ulrich Steidl has also been a past president of ISEH.

"I decided to participate in the ISEH Mentoring Program as I am extremely motivated and enthusiastic about mentoring the next generation of young researchers. I have been a mentor for a large number of awarded individual fellowships and career development awards of my trainees, and I have been fortunate to work with and mentor several absolutely outstanding mentees at all levels in the past 18 years, many of which have gone on to highly successful careers. I am hoping to be able to pass on some of these experiences to participants of the ISEH mentoring program."

Nancy Speck, PhD - USA

Chair, Perelman School of Medicine Department of Cell and Developmental Biology
Co-Leader, Hematologic Malignancies Program, Abramson Cancer Center
University of Pennsylvania

Nancy Speck earned her PhD in biochemistry from Northwestern University and completed postdoctoral research fellowships at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and the Center for Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1989 she started her own laboratory at Dartmouth Medical School, where she was the James J. Carroll Chair of Oncology. She joined the University of Pennsylvania in 2008, where she is the John W. Eckman Professor of Medical Science II, an Investigator at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, and Chair of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. Her work focuses on hematopoietic ontogeny and leukemia predisposition caused by RUNX1 mutations.

"As a department chair and lab head, mentoring has been one of the most meaningful aspects of my job. It is a privilege to celebrate people’s successes, support them as they overcome personal and professional challenges, and help them develop their skills in communicating their work."

Hitoshi Takizawa, PhD - Japan

Professor, Laboratory of Stem Cell Stress, International Research Center for Medical Sciences
Kumamoto University

Dr. Takizawa studied cytokine signallings through c-Kit and c-Mpl for HSC maintenance and expansion (Blood 2006; JCI 2010, Blood 2016), and HSC cycling dynamics in a steady state and inflammatory context such as infection, leukemogenesis (JEM 2011, JEM 2014, Cancer Sci 2022). His lab work has revealed that HSCs can sense inflammation-associated danger signals through toll-like receptors to adapt hematopoiesis for host defence and tissue repair (Blood 2012, JEM 2011, Cell Stem Cell 2017, Blood 2022, EMBO J 2022, EMBO Rep 2023, EMBO Mol Med 2026). More recently, his lab’s interest has been extended to other research area including mitochondrial tRNA modification in normal and malignant hematopoiesis (Sci Adv 2025), and hematopoietic cell transplantation.

"First of all, I found ISEH mentoring program excellent idea and it would benefit both mentee and mentor. I think it would be possible for all of attendees to find a way to grow together by sharing my experiences and discussing current and future challenges."