Rate My Professor Nancy Davidson

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

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5.04/23/2026

Fosters a love for lifelong learning.

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About Nancy

Nancy E. Davidson, MD, serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Academic Officer at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, holding the Raisbeck Endowed Chair for Collaborative Research and professorship in the Clinical Research Division. She is also a professor in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Washington School of Medicine. In Medicine, Dr. Davidson is a renowned breast cancer medical oncologist whose career bridges laboratory discoveries with clinical advancements. She provides patient care for breast cancer and leads efforts across cancer treatment, research, and education within the Fred Hutch/University of Washington/Seattle Children's Cancer Consortium.

Dr. Davidson earned a BA in Molecular Biology from Wellesley College and an MD from Harvard Medical School. She completed an internal medicine internship and residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins Hospital, followed by a medical oncology fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. Board-certified in medical oncology since 1985 and internal medicine since 1982 by the American Board of Internal Medicine, she previously directed the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute from 2009 to 2016 and served as Breast Cancer Research Professor of Oncology and founding director of the Breast Cancer Program at Johns Hopkins University. Her research centers on epigenetics in breast cancer, including DNA methylation and histone modifications driving hormone resistance in human cell lines, regulation of estrogen receptor genes, hormonal influences on cancer growth, and apoptosis induction via estrogen deprivation and therapies. She has led practice-changing clinical trials on optimal endocrine therapy for pre- and postmenopausal hormone-responsive breast cancer, adjuvant taxanes, and trastuzumab for early HER2-positive breast cancer. As co-founder of the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium, she advances biospecimen-rich translational trials and evidence-based pathways. Key publications include 'Trastuzumab plus adjuvant chemotherapy for operable HER2-positive breast cancer' (New England Journal of Medicine, 2005), 'Effects of radiotherapy and of differences in the extent of surgery for early breast cancer on local recurrence and 15-year survival: an overview of the randomised trials' (The Lancet, 2005), and contributions to St Gallen International Expert Consensus guidelines (Annals of Oncology, 2013 and 2015). Dr. Davidson's leadership includes past presidencies of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (2007-2008) and American Association for Cancer Research (2016-2017), membership in the Breast Committee and chair for the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, and election to the National Academy of Medicine and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Awards include the ASCO Allen S. Lichter Visionary Leader Award (2018) and NCI Rosalind E. Franklin Award (2010).