Board Member

Daniela Molena

Dr. Daniela Molena is Director of the Esophageal Surgery Program and Professor, Cardiothoracic Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College, and Associate Attending, Thoracic Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY.

Dr. Daniela Molena is a graduate of the University of Padova Medical School in Italy. She completed residencies in general surgery both at the University of Padova and at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, NY. She completed a gastrointestinal research fellowship at the University of California in San Francisco and cardiothoracic clinical fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and Weill Cornell Medical College. She served as Chief of Thoracic Surgery at John Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and was recruited back to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2015 to serve as the Director of the Esophageal Program within the Thoracic Surgery Division.

Her research focuses on identifying and measuring quality indicators to improve clinical and functional outcomes after surgery, designing clinical pathways to decrease costs and improve results, and identifying racial and socioeconomic disparities that limit access to excellent care. She is also interested in developing and studying new technologies and imaging-guided approaches to direct surgical resection to be more precise, effective, and less invasive.

Dr. Molena has authored over 100 manuscripts and several book chapters. She is Deputy Editor of Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Editor of Diseases of the Esophagus, and on the Editorial Board of Annals of Surgery, Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, and others. She is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a member of the American Surgical Association, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons, the Society for Surgeons of the Alimentary Tract, the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, and International Society for the Diseases of the Esophagus. She holds leadership positions in several of these surgical societies and she is Vice President of the Society Women in Thoracic Surgery.