Related Issue
Winter 2025-2026
Business & Entrepreneurship
Anti-Cancer Entrepreneur
A triple bout with cancer launched an advocacy career.
By Tim Murphy ’91 / Winter 2025-2026
December 2nd, 2025
Back home the summer before his sophomore year at Brown, Columbus, Ohio’s Doug Ulman ’99 got a diagnosis of chondrosarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer. He had surgery that August to remove the tumor and even managed to play one (exhausted) game for Brown’s soccer team when he returned to Providence in the fall—but the following spring, he was diagnosed with cancer again twice—each time a melanoma on his arm that required surgery. The triple-whammy forced him to get philosophical at an early age: “I learned early on that the longer you stay in the ‘Why me?’ phase, the longer it’s going to take to recover psychologically,” he says.
He’s been cancer-free since. But the experience drove him to focus his advocacy toward the cancer field. Even before leaving Brown, he started—with help from the Swearer Center for Public Service—the Doug Ulman Foundation (now just the Ulman Foundation), which supports cancer patients or survivors ages 15 to 39 by platforming nearly 500 support groups nationwide and running a scholarship program for young survivors who want to continue their education.
Ulman chairs a bike ride that raises millions for cancer research. Photo: trittschuh photography
After Brown, Ulman spent 14 years at the Lance Armstrong (later Live-strong) Foundation, ultimately as its CEO, where, he says, he was most proud of the data he gathered yearly to find out what cancer patients and survivors most needed—leading to innovations including a special exercise program in partnership with YMCAs nationwide.
Currently, he’s the CEO of Ohio State University’s Pelotonia, which raises funds for lifesaving cancer research. The group holds a yearly bike ride that he says has raised more than $300 million. Some of that money has supported a trial that found that the MS drug ibrutinib worked powerfully against chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL); it is now taken by thousands of CLL patients worldwide. Pelotonia currently supports an OSU trial for an immunotherapy drug against pancreatic cancer; the trial is unique in that it facilitates remote participation with patients’ local care teams as go-betweens. And Pelotonia has also funded work by OSU researcher Dr. Zihai Li which found that there were chromosomal differences between men and women that may explain why men die of some cancers at higher rates than women.
In 2022, Ulman started the Orli Foundation to help nurture other budding young social entrepreneurs. He says he may not have become one himself were it not for Brown. “Being there fostered a sense of creativity and innovation that allowed me to shape an entire career in a space I didn’t even know existed,” he says. He also has to thank his early cancer trifecta. “It was the worst thing in the moment, but in hindsight, because of what it led me to, it’s been a blessing in many regards.”
