I am truly humbled to receive the John W. Duckett, Jr., MD Pediatric Urology Research Excellence Award. Dr. Duckett was not only a pioneer in our field but someone whose innovative approach to pediatric urology set new standards for care. Early in my career, his work shaped the way I thought about research and its role in driving meaningful change.

From my earliest days in college, research has been a way for me to better understand medicine, improve patient care, and stay engaged in the evolving field of pediatric urology. I have been fortunate to work alongside remarkable mentors, colleagues, and fellows who have guided and challenged me along the way. Our contributions have included refining vesicoureteral reflux management with the VUR Index, advancing magnetic resonance urography (MRU), developing endoscopic injection techniques to correct urinary reflux, improving robot-assisted surgery, and expanding the use of minimally invasive techniques.

Through the AUA Innovation Nexus, I was able to introduce my startup, Global Continence, which has allowed me to translate research into real-world solutions. One of our most exciting developments has been the Soluu™ Bedwetting Mitigation Device (under FDA review), which uses transcutaneous nerve stimulation to help children recognize bladder fullness and overcome nocturnal enuresis. None of this would have been possible without the collaboration and dedication of so many in our field.

Research has always been, for me, a way to keep learning and to give back, ensuring that we continue to improve the lives of the children and families we serve. I am especially grateful to my family for their encouragement and support, which have made it possible for me to dedicate myself to this work. I am also deeply thankful to the Urology Care Foundation, the Societies for Pediatric Urology, and the American Association of Pediatric Urologists for this recognition, and I share this honor with everyone who has contributed to this field.

I am most honored to be the 2025 recipient of the Urology Care Foundation (UCF) Richard D. Williams, MD Prostate Cancer Research Excellence Award, and for the Society of Urologic Oncology and UCF for recognizing the transformative effect of co-developing innovative therapeutics along with biomarkers to better inform medical decision making and improve patient outcomes. The successful execution of this strategy was made possible by the mission-driven, multidisciplinary, multi-center collaborations established by the Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium (PCCTC), a program enabled by the Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) and the Prostate Cancer Research Program (PCRP) of the US Department of Defense (DOD), that I had the privilege to lead which to date has provided over 16,200 patients access to clinical trials of potentially breakthrough therapies, including those for patients with disease for which no life-prolonging therapeutic options exist. I would like to thank Howard Soule from the PCF and Jake Vinson from the PCCTC in achieving these successes. I am humbled by this honor and would like to thank the prostate cancer research community, study participants, and many advocates who have made these advances possible.

My time as an American Urologic Foundation Scholar was among the most transformative times in my training.  It set the groundwork for a career of translational studies and clinical trials.  During that time I was fortunate to be mentored in the basic and translational science of the immunology of renal cell carcinoma before there were any effective systemic therapies in this space.  Our sentinel articles in Cancer Research, The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Blood, Clinical Cancer Research, The Journal of the NCI and many others demonstrated that the tumor induces immune dysfunction via multiple defense mechanisms which perturb innate immune responsiveness to tumor antigens.  While we were able to show these initial defects altered T cell function to RCC, we were unable to identify the putative agents (eg PD1/CTLA4 etc).  Nonetheless, I felt I had a front row seat to the transformational therapies that came after our work which have led to 3-5x incremental survivals for metastatic and locally advanced RCC and allowed us to feel more comfortable early on with active surveillance for the small renal mass knowing there were effective systemic options. In addition to my dozens of publications as an AFUD scholar, I have benefited tremendously from my continued career long collaboration with Dr Vladimir Kolenko with whom I share 100’s of peer reviewed articles, chapters and abstracts.  From an organizational and process perspective, the AFUD helped me understand the complex ecosystems necessary to facilitate meaningful translational research and I have used this in my career ever since.  My sincere thanks to the late Drs Darracott Vaughan and Andrew Novick for their mentorship and support of my career during and subsequent to my AFUD experience.

Thank you for the incredible honor of the Distinguished Mentor Award. I owe a debt of gratitude to the mentees I have been lucky enough to work with. It has certainly been a bidirectional relationship, and I share this with the individuals with whom I have had the great opportunity to work.

I would like to express my profound gratitude to the Urology Care Foundation, AUA, IAUA, and the Boston Children’s Department of Urology for their unwavering critical support as I embark on my journey toward becoming an independent surgeon-scientist. I’d like to thank my mentors, Dr. Rosalyn Adam, Dr. Michael Cima, Dr. Carlos Estrada, Dr. Siam Oottamasathien, and Dr. Hatim Thaker, for their encouragement, guidance, wisdom, critiques, and patience. They consistently push me to think critically and outside the box. Moreover, the progress we've made on a challenging project would not have been possible without the unwavering efforts of my exceptional colleagues: Alex Bigger-Allen, Kyle Costa, Gabriel Ocampo, and Xuehui Yang. I am thrilled by the potential of this research and am eager to continue unraveling its narrative with the broader urologic and scientific communities.

I am truly honored to receive the Outstanding Graduate Scholar Award for my two-year research project titled “Identifying immune tumor cell metabolic dependencies in prostate cancer”. I am humbled and deeply appreciative to the Urology Care foundation and the American Urological Association for their support which allowed me to dissect novel mechanisms of therapeutic resistance in prostate cancer. The scientific knowledge and ideas that I gained by completing this project enabled me to explore new research avenues, secure federal grants, and establish my independent lab at Indiana University. I am grateful to my mentors, Kosj Yamoah, MD PhD (Moffitt Cancer Center) and Michael Koch, MD (Indiana University School of Medicine Department of Urology). I extend my gratitude to my collaborators at Moffitt Cancer Center and at Indiana University for their support and inspiration. This recognition strengthens my commitment to translational research and motivates me to continue striving for excellence.