About Our Founder
Susan L. Weiner, Ph.D., founded the Children’s Cause for Cancer Advocacy (originally named The Children’s Cause, Inc.) in 1999 to give voice to the concerns of childhood cancer patients, survivors and their families and empower them to take on leadership roles in pediatric cancer advocacy.
“Like many of you, this mission was derived from personal experience. My son Adam spent his 13 years of life struggling with a brain tumor, its treatment and aftermath. For me, the joy of his childhood was entangled with anguish about the inadequacy of treatments to make him well and the dire absence of interventions to help him develop normally.”
Dr. Weiner, whose child was a 13-year cancer survivor, has been key in bringing childhood cancer to the forefront of the national cancer policy agenda. She has served on multiple committees of the Institute of Medicine, the National Cancer Institute, the Food and Drug Administration, and the US Department of Health and Human Services. In addition to service on other nonprofit boards, she has provided long standing oversight to the Children's Brain Tumor research funding programs.
Dr. Weiner is also a founder of the Mary McDowell Friends School, an independent school for children with learning disabilities in New York City.
Susan Weiner is the recipient of ASCO's 2017 Partners in Progress Award. The Partners in Progress Award recognizes a person involved in patient advocacy activities that have an impact on public awareness about cancer, its causes, cures, or treatment, or activities that result in additional support either legislatively or fiscally for cancer research, treatment, prevention or care.
Susan Weiner attends White House Champions of Change Event in 2015