W. Kimryn Rathmell, M.D., Ph.D., M.M.H.C., was sworn in as the 17th NCI director on December 18, 2023. She previously led the Vanderbilt University Medical Center as physician-in-chief and chair of the Department of Medicine. Dr. Rathmell is a recipient of the 2019 Louisa Nelson Award for Women of Achievement, Vision, and InspirationExit Disclaimer, the 2019 Eugene P. Schonfeld Award from the Kidney Cancer AssociationExit Disclaimer, and the Paragon Award for Research Excellence from the Doris Duke FoundationExit Disclaimer. She was a leader of The Cancer Genome Atlas’s (TCGA) kidney cancer projects and served as a TCGA analysis working group member across the spectrum of cancers, winning the 2020 American Association for Cancer Research Team Science AwardExit Disclaimer. She has served on the NCI Board of Scientific Advisors, and the Forbeck Foundation Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Rathmell has held leadership positions with the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Society for Clinical Investigation, serving as secretary–treasurer and president. As a result of her efforts, Dr. Rathmell has been elected to the Association of American Physicians, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Rathmell’s specialty is the research and treatment of complex and hereditary kidney cancers. She also focuses on underlying drivers of kidney cancers using genetic, molecular, and cell biology to develop interventions to improve patients’ lives.