Dr Alva was the Maisel Endowed Professor of Clinical and Translational Research in Hematology and Oncology at the University of Michigan Rogel Comprehensive Cancer Center prior to his move down to Kansas in 2025.
His guiding philosophy is to blend passion and compassion with state-of-the-art clinical evidence to optimize patient outcomes and achieve the mutually established goals.
He received his medical degree from Pondicherry University in 2000. He then completed a Masters in Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Maryland/NIH in 2004. After an Internal Medicine Residency in Baltimore included oncology rotations at the Johns Hopkins hospital, he was selected for the Hematology Oncology fellowship program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
His first job as faculty was at Baylor College of medicine in Houston, Texas. He moved back to Ann Arbor to join as assistant professor in 2011. He rose through the ranks of associate professor and full professor over the subsequent years while conducting cutting edge research on improving outcomes in patients with urological malignancies. He is a fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. His research work has been published in prestigious journals, including the New England Jounal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lancet Oncology, among others. He has more than 250 publications to his name.
He and his wife have been married for 23 years and have two sons.