Education Committee Self Nomination for Nensi Ruzgar

I am a current research fellow at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s and a BIDMC general surgery resident passionate about cancer genomics, surgical education, and improving representation in academic surgery. My research focuses on improving pre-operative risk stratification in hepatoblastoma using circulating tumor DNA signatures. I have a concurrent interest in capacity building and skills transfer in science and surgery and was lucky to receive awards for my prior work on this topic, including my MD/MHS thesis on building a surgical biobanking program in Uganda.

Having benefited from AAS programming since 2020, I would love to strengthen these initiatives as a committee member, while diversifying recruitment and expanding skill-based sessions for trainees on the surgeon-scientist pathway. Beyond the Fundamentals of Surgical Research course and ASC mentorship breakfasts, I would like to support AAS mentorship opportunities throughout the year with common research/interest-based forums or online topic-specific events. This way, trainees could build targeted and specific connections with mentors outside their existing networks.

Additionally, my path in surgery has been shaped by the mentors and peers I met due to our shared identities, through my involvement in AWS, on LGBTQIA+-affiliated projects, or as a past chair of the Gender Equity Initiative in Global Surgery. On AAS committees, outreach to underrepresented identities would be a priority for me. I would hope to support new affinity-based mentorship projects, soft-skills-based sessions targeted toward intersectional identities, and new inter-society collaborations.

Thank you for your consideration and I am excited to contribute to and learn from AAS and its members!

3

2020, 2021, 2022