Heidi Hartung-Rispoli, LSW, MFA, CPT is a Licensed Social Worker, Psychotherapist, hospice and grief counselor, artist and fitness/yoga instructor based in New Jersey. In addition she is an activist, a fundraiser for childhood cancer research, a motivational speaker and thought leader. Heidi’s greatest accomplishment is the designing, funding and building of Josephine’s Garden on the 5th floor rooftop of the Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital. It is a sacred healing respite for the children fighting childhood cancer. This space helps hundreds of children and their families each year while keeping Josephine’s spirit alive. In 2015 Heidi funded the Josephine Elle Hartung-Rispoli Research Lab. The first of its kind in New Jersey which allows for phase I and phase II clinical trials. In addition Heidi was instrumental in getting the S.T.A.R Act turned into law through her advocacy work in Washington D.C.
Childhood brain tumors are the number one killer of children by disease. The Josephine’s Garden Foundation has raised over one million dollars for childhood cancer research and assistance to the children battling cancer. For more information please visit JosephinesGarden.org and josephinesgarden Facebook and @josephinesgarden Instagram.
“My why is my 7 year old daughter Josephine who died from childhood cancer at the tender age of 7 after a 13 month battle with AT/RT a highly aggressive and malignant pediatric brain tumor. Josephine’s journey helped me to define my purpose and to clarify what I was meant to do with the gifts God has given me. Josephine’s life and then death ignited a fire in me to educate, inspire, advocate, activate and create. Navigating through the darkness and the fire to a new place, becoming a new person with a new reality. Cancer changes everything. The wound from the death of a child is forever open. My grief can be all consuming but I choose to walk through the pain and grow around the grief. My work keeps my daughter alive. Josephine’s journey has opened my eyes wide open to create change by awakening the hearts of others.”
Edward Moschetti is a retired professional who worked 45 years for Verizon in various Human Resources and Finance positions. During his career he led numerous teams always focusing on the needs of his teammates while providing an environment for all to succeed. During the past 6 years since his retirement, he has focused on his family (wife, children, grandchildren, and mother in law) and many community ventures. Together with his wife Joanna they have enjoyed traveling.
After retiring in March 2019, his mother passed away at 88 years old. Ed and Joanna cared for his mother until her dying day as she lived next door to their house.
Life was trending in a very positive direction as he celebrated the marriage of his oldest daughter in December 2021 with many family and friends. During his routine yearly physical in March 2022, his primary care physician noticed an abnormality on his chest. Ed had been experiencing no signs and all routine tests were negative. A Mammography was prescribed, followed by a biopsy which revealed a cancerous tumor in the breast. The diagnosis was stunning as there was no family history of breast cancer. Ed faced the challenge at hand and with the tremendous help and guidance from the Doctors and Staff at Overlook Hospital was able to attack the disease. After surgery and months of chemotherapy and radiation, he is cancer free.
Ed is now enjoying life with his family and friends, especially his grandchildren. This journey has further reinforced the notion that life can change overnight and present challenges that you have never dreamed of. He kept a positive attitude throughout and leaned heavily on his wife and children for the dedicated support they gave him. Ed is a volunteer with the Cancer Hope Network and provides support to cancer patients who are in the midst of the disease.
Throughout the past 12 years, Jason Suh, MD, has provided compassionate state-of-the art medical care and treatment for thousands of patients with cancers of the blood – leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma – and serious blood disorders at Valley-Mount Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Care in Paramus, part of Valley Health System in Bergen County, New Jersey. He is known for his devotion to his patients, innovative clinical research, and ability to help his patients understand their illness and make important, often complex treatment decisions that respect their life choices.
In describing his approach to caring for patients with life-threatening cancers and life-limiting benign blood disorders, Dr. Suh refers to himself as a Sherpa, building relationships and guiding patients to self-awareness of what they face and how to live the life they want despite whatever challenges their illness or treatment may pose. He vows to never lose sight of providing the human touch. Patients commend him for his knowledge and listening skills, his confidence in the personal care plans he creates for each patient, and his ability to encourage questions from patients and their families.
As head of hematology and hematologic oncology at Valley, Dr. Suh oversees all patient care in his specialty, serves as the main physician liaison between The Valley Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, and leads the hematologic oncology tumor board and oncology journal club at Valley. Major accomplishments include establishing the acute leukemia treatment program and the bispecific antibody therapy program, a promising new type of immunotherapy that “supercharges” the power of patients’ own immune systems to seek out cancer cells and destroy them.
Dr. Suh is the principal investigator for several clinical trials funded by the National Institutes of Health and in partnership with the pharmaceutical industry and the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital. These studies include bispecific antibody therapy for multiple myeloma, new regimens to treat acute myeloid leukemia, and immunotherapy to treat solid tumors.
Dr. Suh earned a dual BA in biology and music theory/composition from the University of Pennsylvania. Since age 7, he wanted to become a physician and entered the St. George’s University School of Medicine with the intention to become a medical oncologist. He says he desired to fulfill an area of medicine where there is the greatest need and to bring the art of medicine back. He completed his medical degree in 2007, then went on to NYU Winthrop University Hospital to complete his internal medicine residency in 2010 and his fellowship in hematology-oncology in 2013. He completed a Master of Medical Management degree at Carnegie Mellon University in 2023.
At Valley, he was a founding member of the Thrombosis Prevention Committee and Stoke Prevention Committee, and he served on the Physician Advisory Committee to modernize Valley’s use of an electronic medical record system. He is a clinical assistant professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and works closely with Valley’s internal medicine residents. He has been named a Top Doctor by Bergen magazine for eight consecutive years.
For 21 years, he and his wife, internationally renowned cellist Soo Bae, have taught and mentored young musicians ages 10 to 18 in the Angelos Mission Ensemble of Englewood, New Jersey. AME runs a tuition-free, faith-based mission of music education, concerts, and community service by holding a summer camp, yearly benefit concert, and performances in nursing homes, hospitals, and for the unhoused in New York City. Dr. Suh and Ms. Bae have three children. Dr. Suh has also volunteered for the Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts, and he has run triathlons with his family.
While seeing myself with a career in medicine was the easy part, finding a calling in nuclear medicine was not.
In high school I volunteered at my local hospital’s pathology lab helping to file specimen slides and clean machines in the morning and help prepare tissue samples for dissection in the afternoon. As an undergrad at the University of Rochester I spent my first summer shadowing a neurosurgeon and writing up his practice’s early experience with intraoperative CT to guide minimally invasive spine surgery (a new technique at the time). Later, I did outcomes research for the transplant department showing how local allocation of older livers could expand the donor pool and improve survival.
Physiology, the of study of how cellular machinery, organs, and organ systems function, was by far my favorite course in medical school. It brought together all the basic sciences of biology, chemistry, and physics I loved in with the “why” of how disease can affect these systems. In obtaining my PhD I studied vascular physiology and how metabolic diseases, in particular diabetes, could alter the function of small vessels in the heart. This research brought me to the University of Oxford on a British Heart Foundation grant, where I was exposed to groundbreaking work in a neighboring lab where microparticles were being used as imaging and therapy delivery tools for MS (multiple sclerosis). I was similarly using these particles to image, in real time, cellular signalizing in inflammation within blood vessels.
Several years later as a radiology resident, I saw a nuclear medicine lecture about the use of tagged molecules which could be intravenously administered to deliver high dose radiation to select receptors on cancer cells while sparing the normal tissue. While still experimental, I knew this is what I had to be involved with – it was innovative, used many of the concepts I was familiar with and helped develop during my PhD research, and would allow me to combine all my interests into one field – now coined nuclear theranostics.
Nuclear theranostics uses small amounts of radioactivity attached to cancer specific molecules first to image (PET scan) and pinpoint these cells and then treat the cancers with high dose intravenous radiation therapy (using the same molecule) while sparing adjacent tissue. By understanding the cellular expression of not only different cancer cells, but also the distribution of this cellular expression between patients (even with the “same” cancer), we are able to personalize care such that each patient is treated with what is most likely to help them. In addition to new radiation therapies, nuclear oncology also focuses on developing new PET scan tracers to better categorize cancer cells and help define which medical therapies may be optimal starting points for patients. My practice also focuses on how we can apply these tracers off-label to other cancers which share similar attributes – for example, using prostate cancer PET scan probes for imaging high grade brain tumors.
Every patient and every cancer is different, and I feel that we are now at a point where we can start to treat it that way.
Dr. Mindy A. Goldfischer has dedicated her career to advancing breast cancer detection as the Medical Director of the Leslie Simon Breast Care Center at Englewood Health and Chief of Breast Imaging at the medical center. Under her leadership, the Center has achieved unprecedented recognition for excellence in comprehensive breast cancer care.
The Leslie Simon Breast Care Center stands as a testament to Dr. Goldfischer’s commitment to the highest quality care. The Center was the first in New Jersey to earn accreditation by the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers (NAPBC), a quality assurance program administered by the American College of Surgeons that signifies a commitment to providing comprehensive, high-quality, and multidisciplinary breast cancer services.
The Center’s achievements extend beyond this historic milestone. It holds designation as a Certified Quality Breast Center by the National Consortium of Breast Centers (NCBC), a certification awarded based on performance in quality metrics including timeliness of care. The American College of Radiology has designated it a Breast Imaging Center of Excellence, and the US Congress has recognized it as a national model for breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Dr. Goldfischer discovered her calling while attending medical school at New York University Grossman School of Medicine, where she recognized that a career in radiology would allow her to combine her interest in visual arts with her medical degree. She continued her training at Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center, followed by a fellowship at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
Throughout her entire career at Englewood Health, Dr. Goldfischer has been at the forefront of technological advancement in breast imaging. When the Breast Center opened in 1991, she devoted her practice exclusively to breast imaging and intervention, personally overseeing the critical transition from film to digital breast imaging and ultimately to 3D imaging. This advancement has significantly improved image quality and diagnostic accuracy.
Dr. Goldfischer has been a pioneering advocate for the use of breast MRI in high-risk women, enabling the detection of tumors that are not visible on mammography or sonogram. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Radiology at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine.
Dr. Goldfischer is committed to educating the public on a variety of topics related to breast cancer detection. She has written articles for magazines and newspapers and has contributed to academic journals, sharing her expertise with both lay audiences and medical professionals.
“The field of breast imaging is challenging. Most everyone who comes for a routine mammogram is worried that they might have breast cancer. I am so fortunate to work with a dedicated and caring team that is sensitive to the needs and concerns of our patients,” reflects Dr. Goldfischer.
Dr. Goldfischer’s excellence has been consistently recognized by her peers and the medical community. She has been named a Castle Connolly Top Doctor annually since 2008. Additional honors include recognition as an Exceptional Woman in Medicine, a New York Magazine Top Doctor, and New Jersey’s Top Doctor for Cancer and Women’s Health.
Dr. Goldfischer is most proud of her two children, Jodi and Steven. When not dedicated to her patients and practice, she enjoys reading, Pilates, needlepoint, Zendoodle, and Wordle—pursuits that reflect the same attention to detail and precision that characterize her medical practice.
Heemwatie G. Jones is a seasoned healthcare leader with more than 15 years of progressive experience in cancer center operations, physician practice management, and patient care coordination. She currently serves as Cancer Center Manager and Physician Practice Manager at Saint Michael’s Medical Center in Newark, NJ, where she oversees multidisciplinary clinics in Hematology, Oncology, and Breast Surgery. In this role, she leads a team of 15 employees and manages the daily operations of a high-volume practice serving more than 200 patients.
Ms. Jones is highly regarded for her ability to drive operational excellence while maintaining the highest standards of patient care. She has consistently exceeded financial and performance goals, improving revenue cycle integrity, accounts receivables management, insurance claim accuracy, and prior authorization processes. Her expertise extends across compliance with HIPAA and Joint Commission standards, as well as developing innovative solutions that enhance efficiency and patient satisfaction.
A technically proficient leader, Ms. Jones is an Epic Superuser with go-live support experience and advanced knowledge of healthcare systems including NextGen, Allscripts, Lawson, and ICD-10/CPT coding systems. Her skill in integrating technology into clinical and administrative workflows has helped streamline operations and improve overall care delivery.
Earlier in her career, Ms. Jones served as a Patient Care Coordinator at Saint Michael’s Medical Center’s Infectious Disease Clinic, where she became a NextGen EPM Superuser and provided training, registration, and clinical support across multiple outpatient clinics. She began her career in patient care support roles at Saint Michael’s and Columbus Hospital, where she gained early experience in patient interaction, dietary needs, and compassionate service—establishing the foundation for her patient-centered leadership philosophy.
Recognized as a results-driven, detail-oriented professional, Ms. Jones is dedicated to building high-performing teams, strengthening organizational performance, and ensuring equitable access to cancer care services. She is deeply committed to advancing healthcare delivery while balancing operational efficiency with compassion.
Ms. Jones completed her studies at Canje Secondary High School in Guyana and pursued continuing education at Essex County College in Newark, NJ. She has also completed multiple technical training programs in healthcare systems and operations.
Dr. Raptis, a nationally recognized breast cancer specialist, has a distinguished academic and clinical career. He is currently a professor of medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. In addition to treating patients at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center, he serves as Director of Oncology Services for the Northern Region, RWJBarnabas Health and Rutgers Cancer Institute. In this role, he leads an outstanding team of clinicians who ensure the delivery of personalized, high-quality, and innovative cancer care at the state’s only NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. He works in partnership with clinical and administrative leadership teams to develop and implement strategies to integrate, strengthen and grow clinical and research programs across the region.
He completed medical school and residency training in internal medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. After fellowship training in medical oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Dr. Raptis joined the faculty there to explore novel treatment paradigms using sequential high-dose chemotherapy with stem cell transplantation, in addition to other developmental therapeutic studies.
He went back to Mount Sinai Medical Center where he worked on the development of mammaglobin as a novel breast cancer marker and helped develop and lead the Ruttenberg Cancer Treatment Center.
He then transitioned to the Herbert Irving Cancer Center of Columbia University Medical Center and served as Co-Leader of the New York Presbyterian Cancer Service Line.
He was recruited back to Mount Sinai to develop, design, and build the Dubin Breast Center, and to launch the breast cancer research program at Mount Sinai and the Tisch Cancer Institute. His research focused on novel methods to overcome resistance to hormonal therapies and the pharmacogenomics relating to tamoxifen therapy.
Prior to joining RWJBarnabas Health, he was at Northwell Health where he developed and became the VP for the Oncology Network. He subsequently served as the acting Cancer Center Director and the inaugural SVP for the Cancer Service Line. He led the Breast Cancer Disease Management Team and was the director of Breast Cancer Medicine at the Northwell Health Cancer Institute in New York.
“I have been fortunate and privileged to have two career paths that were melded together. The first is to bring clinical and translational research to patients I sit knee to knee with – as I believe research is part of, not apart from, clinical care. And the second is the opportunity to be in academic and health care delivery administrative roles that have allowed me to impact the care of patients I may never meet.”.
Dr. Raptis is blessed to be married to Dr. Irene Draga, an ophthalmologist, and they have four beautiful daughters. Together they enjoy the rich cultural life of New York City, as well as the great outdoors where they hike, kayak, and ski.
Dr. Gutierrez has over two decades of drug discovery experience, which includes bringing Phase I studies into academic and community settings. At the John Theurer Cancer Center he specializes in the care of patients with thoracic and gastrointestinal cancers bringing treatments to patients during their cancer treatment journey. He leads the Phase I clinical trials program which is focused on immunotherapy, targeted therapies, and cell technologies such as CAR-T therapy and NK cell. Prior to joining the John Theurer Cancer Center, he supported numerous research initiatives at the NCI-NIH, serving as Head of the Office of NCI-Navy Oncology, leading the Lung Cancer Research Section and as a member of the Developmental Therapeutic Unit. Most recently, he served as the Medical Director of the Michael & Diannne Bienne’s Comprehensive Cancer Center at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, FL where he launched the first community-based Phase I Unit in South Florida in collaboration with the intramural NCI program. He has spent many years with the National Cancer Institute-National Institutes of Health (NCI-NIH) and other leading institutes helping to develop new therapies for patients who failed standard chemotherapy. His background and experience are invaluable in his role as Co-Chair of the Protocol and Monitoring Committee (PRMC) at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The American Cancer Society is the leading cancer-fighting organization with a vision to end cancer as we know it, for everyone. We are the only organization improving the lives of people with cancer and their families through advocacy, research, and patient support to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to prevent, detect, treat, and survive cancer.