Meet UT-DRO's newest trainees

Aisha Al-Qaderi

Aishah Al-Qaderi is a Kuwaiti physician, who received her B.M., B.Ch degree from Kuwait University in June 2014. She then trained for a year in Amiri Hospital-Kuwait. Later, she joined Kuwait Cancer Control Centre (KCCC) where she currently works.

Aishah has been active with multiple associations regarding improving the health care system in Kuwait starting from Kuwait Medical Student Association, Kuwait Medical Association, and Cancer Awareness Nation. She has an interest in both transitional and clinical research. She is currently building her own experience in how to design, conduct, and report research protocols as well as learning how to criticize the published articles.

Gordon Locke

Gordon Locke is a Toronto native, growing up in High Park with his three younger siblings. He temporarily left Toronto to do  his undergrad in Medical Biophysics at Western University. After Western, he went to McMaster for medical school and now finds himself back in Toronto for his residency. In his free time, he trains for long distance runs and triathlons, play pickup hockey when the time allows and learning how to tailor clothes. This summer he is traveling to Peru, Iceland, Scotland and Germany before starting residency. 

Yonatan Weiss

Yonatan (Yoni) Weiss completed his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry/Health Sciences followed by his medical degree at McMaster University. He has interests in DNA repair, cancer genetics, tumour genomics and various aspects of clinical research. Outside of medicine, Yoni enjoys playing trombone, swimming, and the occasional Netflix binge.

(Kang) Liang Zeng

Liang is a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He lived in England and moved to Mississauga in 2001. He studied Biotechnology and Economics at the University of Waterloo and while an undergraduate co-operative education student, first gained interest in radiation oncology through participating in palliative oncology research.

Outside of medicine, Liang enjoys to travel, play tennis and soccer, and cook. He received coaching certification from Tennis Canada and previously coached tennis in his spare time. He enjoys cooking (and eating), particularly the scientific basis of cooking, and boasts the best steak in Toronto to be his own. As a math-minded type of guy, Liang also enjoys playing poker in his free time. This has, at times, proven to be both a fun and profitable hobby.

During residency, Liang hopes to be active in the mentorship of medical students and continue to develop his research repertoire. He also plans to adopt a cat with his partner who will be starting her training in Internal Medicine and will continue exploring pockets of the city in which he has spent the past 4 years.

Daniel Markel

Daniel Markel joins us from McGill University Health Centre

His research interests include image processing, specifically in the field of adaptive radiotherapy. His previous research has focused on the development and evaluation of segmentation and registration algorithms through the use of alternative objective functions, texture analysis, coupling of the two processes and creation of a deformable lung phantom for non-rigid registration evaluation.

Daniel told UT-DRO that he hopes to receive a "thorough education and training in a wide array of clinical techniques. I also hope to become involved in exciting research and make a contribution to the field of cancer therapy." In the coming weeks, Daniel can be found working at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre during the day. After work, he may be found watching horror movies or playing pool.

Jeff Winter

Jeff Winter is from Barrie, Ontario. He completed a BSc at McMaster University, followed by a PhD at Western University and research fellowship at SickKids. He has worked as an industrial R&D scientist at IMRIS collaborating with physicists at Princess Margaret Cancer Center to develop a new platform for MR-guidance of radiation therapy. Jeff has also worked in clinical medical physics at the Juravinski Cancer Center. His key research interests are MR-guidance of radiation therapy, imaging biomarkers and motion management.

In his spare time, he enjoys camping, canoeing and playing sports. Jeff will also be joining the Medical Physics team at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. 

Vivian Yau

Vivian was born in Hong Kong and raised in the Greater Toronto Area. She completed undergraduate studies in Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University of Toronto. After obtaining an MBBS degree from the University of Queensland, she returned to Toronto to pursue specialty training in Radiation Oncology. She has worked at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center and the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center Odette Cancer Center.  She has had the opportunity to present her research at the UTDRO, CARO, and ASTRO meetings. She has a special interest in SBRT and will be pursuing a clinical fellowship with the lung site group at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. 

Aravind Sundaramurthy 

Aravind Sundaramurthy did his MBBS in India and MRCP at Edinburgh, UK. Subsequently, he completed specialist training in Clinical Oncology (Radiotherapy & Chemotherapy) at the Edinburgh Cancer Centre. He passed FRCR (Clinical oncology) exams in 2015 and obtained his certificate of specialist training in Aug’16.  His career interests are genito-urinary malignancies, advanced radiotherapy techniques, brachytherapy and targeted therapies. Aravind spent the last year of his oncology training, focusing mainly on GU oncology and his most recent appointments are Acting-up as a consultant in GU oncology at Edinburgh Cancer Centre and a tutor with University of Edinburgh for the online ChM Urology course. In order to further his interests, he has taken up a clinical research fellow in radiation oncology (GU malignancies) at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto. He is married and has a 6-year-old son. Outside work, he enjoys spending time with family and our family educational objective for this year in Canada is to learn and be proficient in skiing. 

Anil Tibdewal 

Anil Tibdewal completed medical school from Government Medical college, Nagpur, India from 2001-2007 and served as a Medical officer at a sub-district hospital from 2007- 2008. He did his post-graduation in Radiation Oncology from one of the finest cancer hospitals in India, Tata Memorial center, Mumbai from 2009-2012. 

            After finishing his MD in Radiation Oncology, Anil did three years of senior residency at the same institute and learned the finer aspects of radiation oncology. During this period he also pursued his research interest and published some research papers as an author and co-author in peer reviewed journals. He has a special interest in lung cancer, central nervous system tumors and brain metastasis.  As a part of that, he is currently pursuing a clinical fellowship at Princess Margaret Hospital in Stereotactic body radiation therapy for lung cancer.

            On a personal note, he is a simple guy who loves to travel, play sports, watch movies and spend quality time with family and friends.

Fawzi Abuhijla

Fawzi Abuhijla finished medicine school at Mu'tah University 2009 (Jordan) and also completed his Radiation Oncology residency at King Hussein Cancer Center (KHCC) in 2014. He is interested in new technologies in radiotherapy.

Kevin Chiu

Kevin Chiu is originally from Borneo. He went to medical school at University of Manchester UK and completed his 5 year training in Clinical Oncology in the South West Peninsula of England. He looks forward to starting his head and neck fellowship at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre.

Fabio Moraes

Fabio Moraes was born in Brasília, DF, Brazil and grew up in Bauru, SP, Brazil (countryside of the State of São Paulo). He attended medical school at Faculdade de Medicina de Marilia, Marília, Brazil where he completed a research fellowship in internal medicine and knowledge translation. Prior to joining the radiation oncology fellowship program at University of Toronto – Princess Margaret Cancer Center, Fabio completed his Radiation Oncology residency program at Hospital Sírio-Libanês, São Paulo, Brazil and performed two post-graduation program first in evidence based medicine / statistics followed by a Neuro-Oncology 1-year program. While under his Radiation Oncology staff mentorship he performed a couple of research’s projects and entered a PhD program on Thoracic and Central Nervous System neoplasm to fulfill my combined interests in basic science, technology, methodology and clinical oncology.

Hester Lieng

Hester Lieng is from Sydney, Australia and graduated in medicine at the University of New South Wales. She completed her training in radiation oncology at the Westmead and Nepean Hospitals in Sydney, and passed her Fellowship Exams in March 2015.

Hester will be working with the GU group at PMH, and is looking forward to exploring Canada in the warmer weather.

Shira Felder

Shira Felder received her M.D. degree in 2006 from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and completed her residency in Radiation Oncology in 2014 at Sheba Medical Center, Israel. Following her training, Dr. Felder was appointed to Senior Staff of the Radiation Oncology Department at Sheba Medical Center and has worked exclusively in the Radiation Therapy Gynaecologic Oncology service. Her clinical interests include treatment of gynaecology malignancies, use of low dose radiation as a chemo-sensitizer for treatment of ovarian cancer, brachytherapy and assessment of late toxicity after radiation therapy.

Georgia Harris

Georgia Harris is originally from Sydney, Australia where she completed my training at Royal North Shore Hospital. She will be working at PMH as a palliative radiation oncology fellow (PROP). Her particular areas of interest include palliative care and the treatment of oligometastatic disease, and she has a Masters in Public Health. She’s really looking forward to meeting new people, exploring all that Toronto has to offer and getting some local tips, hitting the Canadian ski slopes, and practicing her (limited!) French.

Andrea Lo

Andrea Lo was born in Vancouver. For her undergraduate studies, she moved to Philadelphia to complete a bioengineering degree at the University of Pennsylvania. She subsequently returned to Vancouver for medical school and residency training at the University of British Columbia. In her free time, she enjoys volleyball, tennis and travelling. She is looking forward to joining the Pediatrics Radiation Oncology team at Princess Margaret this year.