In the summer of 2005, Catherine Ivy and her husband Ben were on vacation when Ben started to complain that his thumb was going numb. Shortly after their trip, Ben went to get what he thought was a pinched nerve examined, only to discover he had an aggressive form of brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme. On Thanksgiving Day, just four months later, Catherine lost her husband and found herself defeated by a disease that didn鈥檛 seem to have a cure in sight. Instead of being consumed by her grief, just a few months after Ben鈥檚 passing, Catherine changed the mission of their recently established Foundation to find a cure for brain cancer so that others wouldn鈥檛 have to suffer the same fate.

Since the inception of the Ben & Catherine Ivy Foundation, Catherine Ivy has become a trailblazer within the medical community. In 2014, she was honored by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) with the John S. McCain Leadership Award, which recognizes leadership and dedication making a significant impact in the fight against disease and helping patients worldwide. Catherine has also been instrumental in finding ways to bring major institutional collaborators together to fight brain cancer and she has been honored by a variety of her partners for the Foundation鈥檚 investment in finding a cure.

Without Catherine鈥檚 pioneering leadership, compassion and perseverance the industry-leading and live-saving work at the Ivy Brain Tumor Center would not be possible. She is not only the reason the needle is moving forward on brain cancer research, but she is the reason why millions of people across the world impacted by brain cancer are finding a sense of hope.