Faculty
Susannah Ellsworth
Dr. Susannah Ellsworth, currently Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh, completed residency training at the University of Maryland in 2010. She obtained additional postdoctoral research training under a NIH-funded T32 Training Grant at Johns Hopkins University, as well as fellowship training in Palliative Medicine at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Ellsworth’s primary clinical focus is in gastrointestinal malignancies and stereotactic body radiation therapy, and her main research interest is in the effects of radiation therapy on the immune system and specifically on circulating lymphocyte populations. She has authored or co-authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications in clinical radiation oncology, including the first publications to describe techniques for calculating dose received by circulating immune cells during external beam radiation therapy and to identify stereotactic body radiation as an option to spare circulating lymphocytes from radiation toxicity. She also has studied the effects of fractionated radiation schemes on lymphocyte subpopulations, circulating immunomodulatory cytokines, and immune repertoire diversity, and was the first author of a paper describing paradoxically low IL-7 levels in patients with radiation-induced absolute and CD4 lymphopenia following external beam radiotherapy. Her work in radiation fractionation effects on peripheral lymphocyte repertoire diversity was recently awarded a Basic and Translational Science Award from the American Society for Radiation Oncology. Dr. Ellsworth is the radiation oncology residency program director at the University of Pittsburgh. She also serves on the ACRO Education Committee, the NCI Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Task Force Working Group on Defining the Role of Radiation in NCTN Clinical Trials, and the University of Pittsburgh Institutional Review Board.