Meet Dustin, 2025 Stewart Scholar
Thanks to a generous survivorship program grant from Hyundai Hope On Wheels, twenty-two survivors were welcomed into the 2025 Children’s Cancer Cause College Scholars Program, representing both organizations’ strong investment in survivors and belief in their bright futures.
Each of these students receive a financial scholarship to help with academic expenses, and each Scholar commits to undertaking a volunteer project of their choosing related to childhood cancer advocacy.
The Stewart Scholarship is our top academic scholarship award, presented to a survivor who demonstrates exceptional potential to make a positive difference in the world. It is named in honor of John and Nancy Stewart, founders of our Stewart Initiative for Childhood Cancer Survivors.
Dustin’s Story
Our 2025 Stewart Scholar Dustin was diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) at age 17, his senior year of high school. Before his diagnosis, he’d been a competitive swimmer and a Chess Master.
His treatment involved over two years of chemo, which he frames in chess terms as “the longest tournament of my life, one I must win week by week.”
While receiving treatment, he graduated high school summa cum laude and then took a gap year to focus on his treatment and recovery.
“Just as I began processing the difficult experience of cancer and looking forward to a fresh start, I received another diagnosis: avascular necrosis (AVN), a painful long-term complication from my high-dose chemotherapy,” Dustin says. “My ‘tournament,’ it seemed, had ended in a draw, not the perfect victory I had hoped for.”
He’ll finish up treatment this summer, which will include port removal and hip surgery, before heading to Northwestern University to study computer science and mathematics.
“My experience with cancer has deeply shaped my perspective and fueled my passion for research,” Dustin told us. "While undergoing treatment at Boston Children's Hospital, I started studying calculus. Learning about linear approximation sparked my idea of using it to predict blood cell counts.”
Dustin’s Advocacy Project: Predictive Modeling for Optimized Chemotherapy Dosing in T-ALL Patients
“This project focuses on using scientific innovation to improve the quality of survivorship for T-ALL patients, offering them a healthier and more hopeful future. Against the tide of adversity, we rise not in supplication, but in struggle for a better outcome.”
During his term as our Stewart Scholar, Dustin will work to advance his project, which is focused on improving the quality of survivorship for children with T-ALL by developing a predictive model for blood cell counts during maintenance chemotherapy.
“Eighty percent of pediatric leukemia survivors face the long-term consequences of chemotherapy-related damage,” he says. “This statistic, coupled with my own experience with AVN, has motivated me to complete this project and provide doctors with a mathematical model with more precise data to guide chemotherapy dosage. My goal is to help minimize the long-term side effects for other patients.”
Dustin describes the problem he’s working to solve: “Current maintenance chemotherapy dosing relies on weekly blood cell counts, particularly absolute neutrophil counts (ANC). However, outpatient blood work may not capture the true nadir, potentially leading to overly aggressive dosing. This can increase the risk of side effects like AVN, impacting long-term quality of life. My project addresses this critical gap by developing a mathematical model to predict blood cell trends, enabling more personalized and precise chemotherapy administration.”
During his gap year, Dustin took online courses in programming, probability, statistics, multivariable calculus, and differential equations that helped him refine his initial work. In discussions with doctors, he learned more the patient-specific variables to consider as his work progresses.
As of May 2025, Dustin is preparing a research paper for publication and finalizing a user-friendly software tool for doctors to collect and analyze patient blood data. We will update this space when Dustin has published his research.