Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center Announces New Directors Angela Hammett and Mandy Shipp

Baton Rouge, La – Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center is proud to welcome two experienced professionals to the organization’s leadership team. Angela Hammett, MSN, RNC-OB, LCCE has been named the director of navigation and support services. Mandy Shipp will serve as the organization’s director of clinical research. Both administrators will oversee teams working on behalf of all eight centers across southeast Louisiana and southwest Mississippi.

As Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center continues to grow and expand, the organization has maintained its commitment to hiring the region’s most talented and experienced cancer care leaders. Hammett and Shipp are just the latest new hires to join the organization.

As director of navigation and support services, Hammett will take the helm of Mary Bird’s robust patient navigation system and oversee a team charged with ensuring patients and their families have the information they need to make the most informed and timely decisions regarding their cancer treatment. Navigators work one-on-one with each patient, easing their concerns, answering questions, coordinating and removing barriers to care, arranging transportation and offering other support as needed.

Angela HammettHammett has over twenty years’ experience providing patient education and outreach in the Baton Rouge community. She most recently served as the community education manager for Woman’s Hospital. Working alongside her education team, she directed the development and implementation of educational programs, community outreach, patient and family education, patient referrals and care coordination for women seeking care at the organization. Over the course of her career, Hammett has established herself as an innovative and strategic project manager with an incredible passion for people. She is dedicated to ensuring all patients are treated with compassion, respect and the highest quality of service.

Hammett earned a Master of Science in Nursing Leadership and Management from Western Governors University in Salt Lake City, Utah. She is a founding board member of the Louisiana Chapter of Women in Healthcare and currently serves as the organization’s board secretary.

As director of clinical research, Mandy Shipp will work toMandy Shipp build on and strengthen Mary Bird Perkins’ ongoing commitment to leading-edge cancer care research. Shipp will apply her experience and expertise to ensuring the organization’s patients can access trials that will be an additive to the standard treatment with the goal of an enhanced outcome.

Shipp is well-known in the community as an established and highly respected clinical trials director. She has more than twenty years’ experience facilitating contracts, managing budgets and engaging in institutional project management. Shipp most recently served as director of clinical resources-clinical trials unit at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, a world-renowned research campus at the forefront of medical discoveries related to obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and dementia. In her role as director, Shipp worked closely with the pharmaceutical industry to broaden study types and phases.

Shipp earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Dietetics from Louisiana State University and completed a dietetic internship at North Oaks Medical Center in Hammond.

“We have absolutely hit a home run with the addition of these two leaders,” said Jonas Fontenot, Ph.D., chief operating officer and Dr. Charles M. Smith chief of physics, Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center. “Without a doubt, the key to Mary Bird Perkins’ success over the past 50 years has been the high-quality team we have built across our organization. As leaders in their respective fields, Angela and Mandy will work hand in hand to ensure our patients have access to the most advanced cancer care, while being treated with the utmost compassion and care that our organization is so well known for.”

To learn more about Mary Bird Perkins, please visit marybird.org.

About Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center

Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center is a regional cancer care organization that has been fighting cancer for more than 50 years. The cancer care organization provides care at seven centers in Baton Rouge, Covington, Hammond, Houma, Gonzales, Zachary and Natchez, Mississippi, and its service area encompasses southeast Louisiana and southwest Mississippi regions. Mary Bird Perkins has a strategic partnership with OneOncology and the largest radiation and medical oncology groups from across the area including exclusive partnerships with Southeastern Louisiana Radiation Oncology Group, which provides radiation therapy throughout Mary Bird Perkins’ service areas, Northshore Oncology Associates, serving St. Tammany and Washington Parishes, specifically the communities of Covington and Slidell and Louisiana Hematology Oncology Associates, which services the Greater Baton Rouge area. For more information, please visit www.marybird.org.