Belinda Avalos, MD, Begins Term as 2025 ASH President
(WASHINGTON, Jan. 7, 2025) — Belinda Avalos, MD, professor of medicine and a senior advisor to the president of Atrium Health Levine Cancer, will serve as president of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) for a year-long term through December 2025.
Dr. Avalos is a physician-scientist with a special clinical interest in blood and marrow transplantation, cellular therapy, and congenital neutropenia (a rare disorder where people present with a low level of white blood cells, which help fight infection). She did her internal medicine residency at The Ohio State University and hematology fellowship at the University of Washington in Seattle and the University of California, Los Angeles. She joined Atrium Health Levine Cancer in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2012.
“ASH has played an integral role in my career, and I am proud and honored to serve as its president this year,” said Dr. Avalos. “I look forward to fostering the next generation of hematologists, expanding ASH’s global reach, and improving health equity in the coming year.”
Dr. Avalos hopes to champion programs that build a broader and more diverse workforce. This includes ASH’s Global Research Awards, which support future international scientific leaders, and ASH’s Hematology Inclusion Pathway (HIP), a comprehensive 13-year longitudinal career pathway of awards that strives to ensure that hematology reflects and serves the diverse world we live in.
“It’s hard to capture the scale of ASH’s work on the global stage. From our awards to the visitor training program and Consortium on Newborn Screening in Africa, ASH is helping hematologists around the world conquer blood diseases,” Dr. Avalos said. “This diversity of geography, ideas, and people help move the field of hematology forward to improve the lives of those living with blood diseases."
Dr. Avalos has been a member of ASH for 31 years and has served in various leadership roles. She has served on the Health Equity Task Force, the Executive Committee as a Councillor, and editor-in-chief of ASH News Daily. As chair of the Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, she helped guide ASH in the development of new awards to offer opportunities to students and trainees who come from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in hematology.
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) (hematology.org) is the world’s largest professional society of hematologists dedicated to furthering the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disorders affecting the blood. Since 1958, the Society has led the development of hematology as a discipline by promoting research, patient care, education, training, and advocacy in hematology.
The Blood journals (https://ashpublications.org/journals) are the premier source for basic, translational, and clinical hematological research. The Blood journals publish more peer-reviewed hematology research than any other academic journals worldwide.
Contact:
Melissa McGue, American Society of Hematology
mmcgue@hematology.org, (202) 552-4927