Kevin Haigis was born in Naples, Italy to American parents. He received his Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Wisconsin and did postdoctoral training in Cancer Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently the CRO of Cancer Biology Department at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.Dr. Haigis developed the first mouse models of colorectal cancer driven by mutant K-RAS and N-RAS and identified isoform-specific functions of these two related oncoproteins.

His role in the Grand Challenge is to identify the molecular mechanisms that underlie the tissue-specific oncogenic properties of K-RAS.