Dr. Fei-Fei Liu

Medical School: University of Toronto 1980

Fellowship: Internal Medicine and Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto 1986

Occupation: Radiation Oncology Clinician-Scientist at Princess Margaret Hospital

Why is Dr. Fei-Fei Liu the Successful Mentor of the January?

As a Radiation Oncology Clinician-Scientist, Dr. Liu’s research program has been focused on investigating and developing novel molecular therapeutic strategies for human malignancies, delivered in conjunction with radiation therapy, along with investigating molecular aberrancies for several human malignancies including breast, cervix, and head/neck cancers. Her laboratory has continuously received peer-reviewed research funding from various agencies including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute (CCSRI), the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation (CBCF), or the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR); her program is currently supported at ~$600K/annum in peer-reviewed funding.

Dr. Liu has also been intensively involved in training and education throughout much of her career. From 1992–2004, she was the Director of the University of Toronto Radiation Oncology Fellowship Program, which under her leadership became the largest and most prestigious such program in the world. She has personally mentored multitudes of Radiation Oncology Residents, Fellows, MSc, PhD graduate students and Post-Doctoral Fellows from her own research program; many proceeding to subsequent scholarships, and academic faculty positions. In 2003, Dr. Liu led a $3.9M CIHR funded Strategic Training in Health Research Initiative, entitled: “Excellence in Radiation Research for the 21st Century (EIRR21)”, which renewed successfully for another 6 years to 2015. The objective of EIRR21 is to train the next generation of trans-disciplinary scientist leaders in Radiation Medicine. More than 50 trans-disciplinary trainees have participated in EIRR21, ranging from radiation oncology residents, fellows, to graduate students or post-doctoral fellows in molecular oncology, structural biology, imaging science, physics, chemistry, bio-informatics, and health services.

Congratulations, Dr. Liu for all your success and for being nominated as the Mentor of the Month for January!

Nominate a Mentor for Next Month!
WinC provides a platform to increase visibility of amazing mentors on an international level. If you have someone in mind that has been an amazing mentor to you or people you know, please email Audrey Wong, the new PM for WinC at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by January 23rd.

By: Juliane K. Unger

Often times, when mentees find a mentor, they hope that the mentor can lead them to their idealized goals. Juliane K. Unger’s article takes a deeper look into the the convoluting journey that mentees take to achieve their goals and the mentor’s role in that journey using Harry Potter characters to help illustrate the roles. While a mentor can help guide a mentee’s ideas to overcome obstacles, the development of the idea itself belongs to the mentee.