Deborah Stephens, DO is the Director of the Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL)and Richter’s Program at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She completed her internal medicine residency at Cleveland Clinic and fellowship training at The Ohio State University. Dr. Stephens leads a subspecialty clinic with a focus on patients with CLL. Her primary research interests include developing new targeted therapies for patients with CLL and lymphoma, studying resistance to current therapies, and developing supportive therapies for complications of CLL.  She is the principal investigator on multiple clinical trials including the international principal investigator for the SWOG S1925 EVOLVE CLL Study (NCT04269902). She leads the CLL Subcommittee within the SWOG Group.  Dr. Stephens is also a member of the medical board for the CLL Society, which is the largest patient-led CLL group in the country. The sum of Dr. Stephens's experiences demonstrates her deep commitment to improve the care of patients with CLL.