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Kristy Richards Initiative

The Kristy Richards Cornell Cancer Biology Scholar Exchange Fund

Kristy Richards

The Kristy Richards Memorial Fund was set up to honor the late Dr. Kristy Richards, a research oncologist at the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Biomedical Sciences (BMS). Dr. Richards held a joint appointment at Weill Cornell Medical College and was a strong advocate for promoting collaborations across the two Cornell campuses. 

The Fund covers transportation and accommodation costs for an exchange between CVM and either Weill Cornell Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center or Rockefeller University. 

Recipients
Rebecca Schmitt

Rebecca Schmitt (Visiting WCM February 2026)
Dr. Rebecca (Bec) Schmitt, a Postdoctoral Associate in Dr. Rick Cerione’s lab in Biomedical and Translational Sciences, visited Weill Cornell to participate in a training opportunity with their collaborators in Dr. Howard Fine’s lab. There, they learned how to grow Glioblastoma Cerebral Organoids (GLICOs) by first using human embryonic stem cells to generate cerebral organoids, then enriching these “mini brains” with patient derived glioblastoma cells. This model system will enable the investigation of how aggressive brain cancer cells adapt to extrinsic and intrinsic stressors in an environment that mimics human brain tissue architecture.

Nahuel Zamponi

Nahuel Zamponi (Visited Ithaca October 20-26, 2025)
Dr. Nahuel Zamponi, Instructor of Cancer Biology at Weill Cornell Medicine, visited the Ithaca campus for one week to present at the 2025 Intercampus Cancer Metabolism Symposium and to meet with collaborators at the College of Veterinary Medicine. Discussions centered on advancing novel tumor–microenvironment–based stratification strategies for canine B-cell lymphoma to enable a forthcoming “Smart-Start” clinical trial, as well as on developing new murine models to study the lymphoma microenvironment and investigate emerging immunotherapeutic approaches. This visit further strengthened collaborative efforts between both campuses within the Progressive Assessment of Therapeutics (PATh) initiative.

Glenn Simmons

Glenn Simmons Jr. (Visited WCM May 13-16, 2025)
Dr. Glenn Simmons, assistant professor in Biomedical Sciences, used the Kristy Richards Scholar Exchange fund to access the tumor model resources he needed to begin some critical experiments for his lung cancer research. The program made it cost-effective for him to spend extra time engaging with critical collaborators that he had only met via zoom, and to test his published molecular mechanism in vivo.

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Elisa Benedetti (Visited Ithaca September 16 - October 5, 2024)
Dr. Elisa Benedetti, a data scientist with the Cornell Veterinary Biobank, participated in a 3-week exchange visit to both WCM in New York city and CVM in Ithaca to explore novel andinnovative applications of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative AI (GenAI) across disciplines. During her visit, she was able to identify areas of strong opportunities and initiate several interdisciplinary collaborations with colleagues across cancer research, medical education and operations, which were successfully extended long after her visit, thereby strengthening cross-functional collaboration across Cornell Colleges and within Veterinary Medicine in particular.