She started her career by doing undergraduate work at Brown University and went on to get her medical degree from Thomas Jefferson University. She did her fellowship with the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2010 and was an associate professor of GI medical oncology at the center from 2010-18, which is when she was recruited to the UA.
Her husband, Dr. Puneet Shroff, is a UA clinical professor of medicine in the College of Medicine — Tucson and associate director of Banner Medical Group’s Allergy Clinic.
The couple was just a few months away from their 20th anniversary, NBC News reported.
“Puneet has been the reason I’ve marched forward. And his ability to understand my vantage point, and his ability … to just stand by my side,” Rachna Shroff told NBC News.
She said her main priority was her children, daughter Simran and son Sachin, and that’s all that really mattered to her.
“To have no cares, so to speak, in the world, and then all of them at your feet all at once, that’s both overwhelming,” Puneet Shroff told NBC News earlier this year. “But it also teaches you resilience, and I hope that teaches our children resilience. I hope, for Rachna’s sake, it gives her strength, courage.”
Simran, who is 17, and Sachin, 13, told NBC that her tenacity and loving nature are what they will remember her by.
One of Rachna Shroff’s final wishes was to establish an award, the Conquer Cancer — Rachna Shroff, MD, MS, FASCO Endowed Young Investigator Award in Biliary Cancers. She completed this goal within weeks and raised more than $1.35 million to support the future of cancer innovation.
At the UA, Shroff was also named the inaugural John F. and Valli S. Duval Endowed Professor for Gastrointestinal Oncology and served as associate dean for clinical and translational research at the College of Medicine — Tucson. She had more than 80 publications under her name and spoke at more than 130 professional engagements.