Kristin Schroeder, MD, MPH

For the past 10 years, Kirstin Schroeder, MD, MPH, has spent six months of each year in a remote city halfway around the world. She takes a 27-hour flight, traveling from Duke University in North Carolina, where she is a pediatric hematologist and oncologist, to Bugando Medical Centre in Mwanza, Tanzania, where she launched a nonprofit called the International Cancer Care and Research Excellence Foundation (iCCARE). Living by the core belief that every child deserves the same chance of survival no matter where in the world they live, Dr. Schroeder and her iCCARE team work tirelessly. They have treated more than 1,800 pediatric cancer patients since she started the program in 2014—and have raised the survival rate from 18% to 50% over the past eight years.

“For Dr. Schroeder, it’s all about helping others when they’re suffering the most,” says Christopher Link ’24 FCN, who served as a student ambassador on the due diligence visit to iCCARE. “She inspired me to dive headfirst into uncertainty—into maybe where God is calling me.”