Week 12 2026

Karen E. Hurley, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic specializing in hereditary cancer risk. She received her A.B. in psychology from Bryn Mawr College in 1983, and her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Temple University in 1998. Before joining the Cleveland Clinic staff, she spent eight years on faculty at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center conducting NCI-funded research on patient decision-making about cancer genetic risk management and other psychosocial issues relevant to high risk patients. She has provided psychotherapy and consultation to over 400 individuals, families and couples with a variety of inherited cancer susceptibility syndromes, including breast/ovarian (BRCA1/2), Lynch syndrome, familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), Li-Fraumeni syndrome, and diffuse gastric cancer syndrome (CDH1). Dr. Hurley has conducted numerous professional education seminars and patient workshops for organizations such as American Psycho-Oncology Society, the National Society of Genetic Counselors, and FORCE (Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered). She is a past or current member of several national advisory boards for high risk individuals, including FORCE, Bright Pink, Sharsheret, The Cancer Support Community’s Breast & Gastric Cancer Registries, the City of Hope National Medical Center’s Cancer Genetics Career Development Program, and the National Cancer Institute’s PDQ Cancer Genetics Editorial Advisory Board. In 2014 she received the Spirit of Empowerment-Individual Commitment award at the 8th Annual FORCE conference, in recognition of her work on behalf of the hereditary cancer community.

Ilana Solomon, ScM, MA, is the Deputy Director for the Center for Precision Medicine and a licensed board-certified genetic counselor specializing in cancer genetics. She received her Master’s degree Genetic Counseling from the Johns Hopkins/National Human Genome Research Institute. Ilana joined the City of Hope Division of Clinical Cancer Genomics in 2013, where she has provided cancer genetics services for patients and families suspected to have a hereditary predisposition to cancer. Since 2019 she also manages and develops City of Hope’s Precision Medicine Program, with the goal of providing all City of Hope patients with genomic-driven care at scale. She has research interests in healthcare communication and implementation, genetic literacy, and ELSI in genomics. She helped co-develop Helping Oncology Patients Explore (HOPE) Genomics: a patient-directed IT platform for cancer genome sequencing education and return of results. She is faculty for the City of Hope Intensive Course in Genetic Cancer Risk Assessment. She is an active member of the National Society of Genetic Counselors and Southern California Genetic Counselors.