DiRubbo channels memories of her beloved father into her work with patients. She’ll graduate next year with a master’s degree in nursing leadership from the Rutgers School of Nursing, where she earned her bachelor’s in nursing in 2015.

Manda DiRubbo had been a nurse at the Rutgers Cancer Institute for three years when her connection to the disease hit home.

DiRubbo’s father, Livio DiRubbo Jr., a Navy veteran whom she describes as a man of quiet resilience and her biggest supporter, was diagnosed with lung cancer. She lost him in 2023 not long after his battle began.

Today, she channels this connection to cancer from her personal experience with her father to every patient she interacts with—whether she is holding a patient’s hand or coordinating clinical trials that offer hope when options feel limited. “Every patient is someone’s father, mother, brother, sister, daughter or son,” she says.

DiRubbo often finds herself walking alongside patients through some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives, celebrating good news or enduring pain. She says the work is always rewarding. Through her studies and experience as a research nurse clinician, she believes in the power of research.