Hematology/Oncology Fellow
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Natalia Tijaro Ovalle, M.D., is a Hematology/Oncology fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), with a strong interest in clinical and translational research in the fields of hematopoietic cell transplantation and cellular therapy.
She earned her medical degree from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. After graduation, she joined the Hematology/Oncology division at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where she worked as a post-doctoral research fellow, focusing on understanding the role of PD-1 signaling in myeloid cells. She also studied immune reconstitution in cord blood transplant recipients, with a particular emphasis on thymic recovery and its role in the development of anti-HHV-6 responses.
Dr. Tijaro Ovalle then completed her internal medicine residency at Yale New Haven Hospital, where she studied the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines in allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant recipients. She served as the co-president of the Yale Residents/Fellows Senate and was awarded with the Yale/Stanford Global Health Scholarship, which allowed her to train with local and international community health activists in Kigali, Rwanda.
As a fellow at MSKCC, Dr. Tijaro Ovalle has served as a member of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Trainee Council (2024–2026) and has been appointed as the Hematology Chief Fellow (2025–2026). Her research focus during fellowship has been centered on personalized dosing of conditioning chemotherapies prior to transplantation, as well as advancing therapeutic strategies to prevent relapse after transplant. Supported by her mentors, Dr. Sergio Giralt and Dr. Gunjan Shah, she is currently leading a trial involving pharmacokinetic-based dosing of Melphalan in combination with Siltuximab, aiming to improve the toxicity and enhance the efficacy of high-dose therapy and autologous hematopoietic transplantation.