Julie Brahmer

Director of the Thoracic Oncology Program and Professor of Oncology, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center

Julie R. Brahmer, M.D., M.Sc. is the Director of the Thoracic Oncology Program and Professor of Oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. She also directs the Kimmel Cancer Center on the Johns Hopkins Bayview campus and is co-principal investigator on Johns Hopkins' National Clinical Trials Network.

Dr. Brahmer received her undergraduate degree in Chemistry and Philosophy in 1989 from the Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska and went on to receive her medical degree from the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Medicine in 1993. Completing her internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Utah, Dr. Brahmer later became the Chief Medical Resident until moving to Baltimore to complete her fellowship in Medical Oncology at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Brahmer is an active clinical leader in the treatment of lung cancer and mesothelioma. She leads the organization of the multidisciplinary thoracic malignancy conference whose members meet weekly to discuss thoracic malignancy cases that need a multidisciplinary review/approach. Dr. Brahmer's research and clinical practice focuses on the development of new therapies for the treatment and prevention of lung cancer and mesothelioma.

Dr. Brahmer's research interests include leading early phase immunotherapy trials of anti-PD-1 antibodies, international phase III studies of immunotherapies in lung cancer and investigator-initiated trials evaluating epigenetic therapies in combination with immunotherapies.

She is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) Thoracic Committee and Cancer Prevention Steering Committee. She is one of the founding Board members for the National Lung Cancer Partnership (formerly Women Against Lung Cancer). Within the National Lung Cancer Partnership, she currently serves as a member and the Chairman of the Scientific Executive Committee. She is also on the medical advisory board of the Lung Cancer Research Fund and the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation.

Tim Akhurst

Dr. Tim Akhurst is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Melbourne and is appointed to the Cancer Imaging department at The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. Dr. Tim Akhurst has authored and co-authored many peer-reviewed scientific papers and presented works at many national and International conferences. Dr. Tim Akhurst research interests include therapeutic radionuclide therapy and PET scanning of cancer patients.

Phillip Antippa

Phillip is a specialist Cardiothoracic surgeon and the Head of Thoracic Surgical Services. His main clinical appointment is at The Royal Melbourne Hospital and at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre as part of the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre.

His work includes all aspects of Adult Thoracic Surgery including care of patients with malignancies of the chest. He is also committed to research and teaching, as well as having an active role in the Trauma Unit at RMH. He is the Director of the Lung Tumour Stream at RMH and has a strong interest in multi-disciplinary cancer care. Phillip is heavily involved in the development of The Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre at the Parkville Campus.

Phillip is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Surgery at the University of Melbourne. He pursues an active teaching role for medical students, residents and nursing staff as well as specialist trainees in Cardiothoracic Surgery. He has developed and runs a Thoracic Fellowship program for training senior registrars in advanced Thoracic Surgical Oncology. He also acts as a preceptor for industry in training other Thoracic surgeons in minimally invasive thoracic surgery including VATS lobectomy.

In January 2020, Phillip received the Medal of the Order of Australia for his services to Thoracic Surgery and to Music.

Maria Aslam

Dr Maria Aslam is a medical oncologist. She qualified from the University of New South Wales and went on to complete oncology training in Newcastle, NSW. Maria is a Staff Specialist with Hunter New England Health. She works primarily with regional and rural patients at Muswellbrook Hospital. She is a passionate advocate for improving cancer outcomes for rural populations. Her research interests include advanced cancers, supportive care, and epidemiology.

Adeola Bamgboje-Ayodele

Dr Bamgboje-Ayodele is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research and a Conjoint Lecturer at the South West Sydney Clinical School, University of New South Wales. Prior to her appointment at the Ingham Institute, she has lectured various health informatics courses at the University of Tasmania for 6 years. Dr Bamgboje-Ayodele has 7+ years of health informatics research experience (2 Post-PhD) focused on improving online access to care. Dr Bamgboje-Ayodele has authored 20 manuscripts (six in 2019) with 17 published (14 as first-author) as peer-reviewed journal articles or conference proceedings (full paper). Dr Bamgboje-Ayodele attained her PhD in 2018 being the recipient of the prestigious Australian Postgraduate Award and the people’s choice award at the 3-minutes thesis competition. Dr Bamgboje has conducted extensive digital health research including: a) development and usability evaluation of iConquerFear, an online self-management intervention to increase FCR treatment access; b) undertaking a systematic review into barriers and facilitators to the availability of efficacious self-directed digital health tools for adults living with and beyond cancer; c) investigating the improvement of consumer safe food management behaviours using smartphone technology; d) managing the implementation of the PROMPT-Care eHealth system into routine care in South Western Sydney Local Health District (SWSLHD) and Illawarra Shoalhaven (ISLHD) cancer centres and; e) leading the ongoing design, development and evaluation of an online intervention supporting the needs of men caring for women with breast cancer (Care Assist).

Fraser Brims

Professor Fraser Brims is a Consultant Respiratory Physician at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and Director of Early Years Clinical Skills at Curtin University Medical School. He is the Deputy Director of the Institute for Respiratory Health and Chairs the Western Australian Mesothelioma Registry. His main research interests include clinical and epidemiological aspects of occupational (particularly asbestos) related lung disease, mesothelioma and the detection of early lung cancer using low dose CT scans.

Vanessa Brunelli

Dr Vanessa Brunelli is a Research Fellow appointed by Queensland University of Technology. Vanessa’s postdoctoral research, a national project investigating the core supportive care components of the specialist lung cancer nurse role that appear most influential on patient experience, is supported by an inaugural Lung Foundation Australia Shine a Light on Lung Cancer Early Career Research Fellowship. Vanessa also holds the position of Nurse Researcher at the Princess Alexandra Hospital. Vanessa is the Chair of the Australia and New Zealand Lung Cancer Nurses Forum (ANZ-LCNF), Co-Chair of the ANZ-LCNF Research and Education portfolios, Member on the Scientific Committee, Thoracic Oncology Group of Australasia, and Visiting Scholar of the International Centre for Community Driven Research, Geneva. Vanessa’s 20+ years as an oncology nurse drives her strong research interest in improving the disease experience for people living with lung cancer, particularly through strategic cross-sector initiatives that develop scholarly evidence to inform lung cancer nursing workforce policy and practice.

Christopher Cao

Christopher graduated with First Class Honours from the University of New South Wales and scored 99/99 in both steps of the United States Medical Licensing Exam. After his cardiothoracic surgical training with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in Sydney, his specialist Fellowship training was completed at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He was then invited to be a Faculty Member in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at New York University Medical Center.

Associate Professor Cao has authored or co-authored more than 100 articles in high-impact international scientific journals and textbooks. His PhD with Sydney University was focused on the surgical management of pleural and lung cancers. He is the first author in one of the largest international registries on robotic surgery to date. His clinical interests include minimally invasive and robotic thoracic surgery.

Venessa Chin

Venessa is a Medical Oncologist working at The Kinghorn Cancer Centre in the fields of lung and head and neck cancer. She worked with the Personalised Cancer Therapeutics group during her PhD, which looked at using genomics to inform therapeutic discoveries in pancreas cancer. Her work included a meta-analysis, in vitro and in vivo analysis of rationally selected drug targets, and analysis of metastasis formation in real time. She is now a post doctoral researcher in the Garvan-Weizmann Centre for Cellular Genomics where her work focuses on how cellular genomics can guide management decisions in cancers of the lung and oropharynx.

Wendy Cooper

Professor Wendy Cooper is a Staff Specialist in Tissue Pathology and Diagnostic Oncology at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney and has a special interest in lung cancer and lymphomas. She is a Clinical Professor at the University of Sydney and a Conjoint Professor at the University of Western Sydney. She graduated from Medicine at the University of Sydney with First Class Honours in 1998. She obtained her Fellowship from the Royal Australasian College of Pathologists in 2004. In 2008 Wendy obtained a PhD from the University of Sydney with a thesis titled “Molecular markers of prognosis in early stage non-small cell lung cancer”. She now specialises in pulmonary pathology and has a particular interest in lung cancer and genetic testing of cancers for personalised medicine. Her major research interest is in prognostic and predictive biomarkers in lung cancer and she has published over 100 peer-reviewed publications and is a frequent speaker at local and international conferences. Wendy is an active member of TOGA as well as the Pathology Committee of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. She is an editor on the 5th edition of the WHO classification of thoracic tumours, and thoracic series champion for the International Collaboration on Cancer Reporting.

David Currow

Professor David Currow is the Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor of Palliative and Supportive Care, Flinders University, Professor of Palliative Medicine at University of Technology Sydney and Associate Director (Research) at the Wolfson Palliative Care Research Centre, University of Hull, England. Research includes clinical trials, use of large datasets to understand better the impact of life-limiting illnesses on patients and caregivers, and codifying the evidence base underpinning palliative care. Research into chronic breathlessness is a particular area of expertise. Research funders include the National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia) and the National Institutes of Health (USA).

He is the principal investigator for the Palliative Care Clinical Studies Collaborative (PaCCSC) which has randomised more than 1850 palliative care patients across 21 sites to phase III symptom control studies, and supports an active international phase IV collaborative. These studies have been shown to directly influence clinical practice. He is a foundation partner in the Australian Palliative Care Outcomes Collaborative (PCOC), an initiative to improve systematically clinical outcomes in palliative care.

David has published more than 500 peer-reviewed articles, editorials and books. He is senior associate editor of Journal of Palliative Medicine and on the editorial boards of Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, BMJ Supportive and Palliative Care and the Journal of Oncology Practice. David is a former president of Palliative Care Australia and the Clinical Oncological Society of Australia.

Shakti Dabholkar

Shakti Dabholkar is a final year Advanced Trainee at Liverpool Hospital, Sydney. His interests include obstructive lung disease, respiratory failure and interventional pulmonology.

Haryana Dhillon

A/Prof Haryana Dhillon (BSc MA PhD) is an Associate Professor in Psycho-Oncology at the University of Sydney. She is a Director of the Centre for Medical Psychology & Evidence-based Decision-making, School of Psychology at the University of Sydney where she co-leads the Cancer Survivorship Research Group.

Haryana has more than 25 years experience in cancer clinical research. She is passionate about rigor in research, collaboration, doing what she can to help humans make it to the 22nd century.

Haryana is Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Psycho-Oncology Cooperative Research Group, and actively involved in leadership roles with other trials groups to promote the inclusion of patient experience and patient reported outcomes in cancer clinical trials.

Haryana’s research is diverse but focused on helping people cope better and recover from the impact of cancer and its treatments.

Rachael Dodd

Dr Rachael Dodd is an early career researcher at the School of Public Health, The University of Sydney. Rachael is a behavioural scientist with expertise in healthcare communication across a range of cancer types and cancer screening programs, including breast, head and neck cancer, cervical and lung cancer. Rachael’s current research is a) looking into communicating key concepts of HPV and cervical cancer in the context of providing reassurance and information about the renewed National Cervical Screening Program in Australia and b) investigating the feasibility and acceptability of implementing a Lung Cancer Screening Program in Australia.

Nicole El-Turk

Nicole El-Turk is a final year medical student from the University of New South Wales. She has published in her areas of interest of radiation oncology, lung cancer, and improving patient experiences of treatment.

Michael Franco

A/Prof Michael Franco (MBBS, FRACP, FAChPM, CHIA) is dual trained in Medical Oncology and Palliative Medicine and a full-time staff specialist at Monash Health. He is now Monash’s Chief Medical Information Officer. Through this work Michael has been an Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University since 2016 and co-created and has coordinated the Medical School’s Palliative Care teaching since 2012. Michael also works in clinical informatics, medical accreditation and education and holds positions of national standing with the Australian Medical Council and Postgraduate Medical Council of Victoria.

Abby Fyfe

Abby Fyfe is the Oncology Clinical Nurse Consultant at Macquarie University Hospital in Sydney, with a special interest in Lung Cancer. She has worked both within Sydney and internationally in senior oncology nursing positions for the last 15 years. Abby is extremely passionate about the patient experience and is involved in quality projects and strategic service planning to develop survivorship and supportive care programs. She has recently commenced on the Australian and New Zealand Lung Cancer Nurses Forum (ANZ-LCNF) steering committee as the private sector representative and survivorship lead.

Alexandra Golledge

Alexandra Golledge is a patient research advocate and works as a senior administrator in cardiovascular research at James Cook University. Her diagnosis at the age of 31 with a rare form of lung cancer sparked her interest in the field, and her drive to create better outcomes for patients through advocacy and raising awareness of rare cancers. Alexandra served for two years as co-chair of the Lung Foundation Australia's Patient Advisory Committee, and presented at the Australian Lung Cancer conference in 2018. She has participated in the Lung Foundation Australia’s campaigns fighting the stigma associated with lung cancer, and spoke at an Astra Zeneca global workshop. Alexandra has also taken part in several philanthropic campaigns for the Peter McCallum Cancer Centre, which resulted in significant funds raised. She has recently recorded an episode entitled ‘Redefining Survival in Lung Cancer’ for the TOGA podcast series and sits on the TOGA consumer advisory panel. She is based in Townsville, North Qld and in her spare time enjoys walking her two cavoodles with her husband and son.

Michael Harden

Dr Michael Harden is a consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, Australia. Dr Harden graduated from the University of Queensland in 1992 as a Chemical Engineer. After working in Western Australia in the mining industry, he completed his undergraduate medical degree from the University of New South Wales in 2000. He completed a postgraduate higher degree with a Masters Degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of New South Wales in 2006, majoring in Cardiovascular Fluid Dynamics and Physiological Fluid Mechanics.

Dr Harden was trained at Royal Hobart Hospital in Tasmania and Prince of Wales and Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney. He then obtained his Fellowship from The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in Cardiothoracic Surgery. He completed an advanced Cardiothoracic Fellowship at Royal Melbourne Hospital, gaining specialist training in Video Assisted Thoracic Surgery and Adult Cardiac Surgery. He is fully trained in minimally invasive thoracic surgery.

Dr Harden has published in the field of tissue engineering, fluid mechanics of the aortic valve, cardiac imaging and cardiac history. He has spoken at international meetings on similar topics and whilst completing his Masters in Biomedical Engineering designed a prototype for an arterovenous anastomotic stent. He was an invited speaker at the 4th Asia-Pacific Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery Conference in GuangZhou, China, in 2013.

He practices at Royal North Shore Hospital and North Shore Private Hospital.

Sarah Heynemann

Sarah Heynemann completed her medical oncology training through the Victorian Medical Oncology Training Program (Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Bendigo Health, St Vincent’s Hospital). She is currently based at Chris O’Brien Lifehouse where she is pursuing a lung cancer fellowship.

Lou Irving

Associate Professor Lou Irving is a Respiratory Physcian at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, the Director of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine and Director of Clinical Trainingat the Royal Melbourne Hospital. In addition to his medical appointments, he holds two principal fellowships at The University of Melbourne, one in the Faculty of Medicine, and the otherin the Department of Physiology. Associate Professor Irving has clinical, teaching and research interests in lung cancer, advanced bronchoscopy and COPD and has published over 100 scientific papers.

Working at Peter Mac, Associate Professor Irving has clinical and research interests in the field of lung cancer. He also serves on a number of committees, including the TSANZ interventional pulmonology SIG, the Lung Foundation Australia Lung Cancer Committee, the WCMICS lung cancer group and the Scientific Advisory Committee, National Research Centre for Asbestos Related Diseases.

Malinda Itchins

Dr Malinda Itchins BMedSci, MBBS(Hons1), PhD, FRACP, is a thoracic medical oncologist at Royal North Shore Hospital, GenesisCare, and North Shore Private. In 2020 she graduated from her doctoral studies investigating drug resistance in ALK-rearranged non-small cell lung cancer both preclinically, and via a clinical trial in progress ALKternate. Malinda is the Lung Cancer Chair for the Clinical Oncology of Australia (COSA) Council, and Early Career Representative for the Thoracic Oncology Group of Australasia (TOGA) Scientific Committee. She is Primary Investigator on a number of lung cancer clinical trials and her research focus to date has been in patterns of care, the real-world experience and drug resistance in oncogene driven lung cancers. She is passionate about the evolution of precision medicine in lung cancer.

Thomas John

A/Prof Thomas John is a medical oncologist specialising in Thoracic malignancies and genetics working at the Peter MacCallum hospital in Melbourne. He received his medical degree from Monash University and PhD from University of Melbourne in 2008. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship with Prof F.Shepherd and Prof M. Tsao in Toronto before returning to Melbourne.

He is a member of ASCO, ESMO, IASLC, AACR, MOGA and the Thoracic Oncology Group Australasia. He is an associate editor for the Journal of Thoracic Oncology and is actively involved clinical trials and translational research into lung cancer and mesothelioma.

He was an author and investigator on several trials using Osimertinib, including the initial Phase I AURA study, AURA3, FLAURA and ADAURA.

Steven Kao

Dr Steven Kao is a medical oncologist at the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse. He completed his PhD at the Asbestos Diseases Research Institute and focused his research on predictive and prognostic factors in malignant mesothelioma. Steven has a wide clinical, translational and psycho-social research interest in thoracic cancers including malignant mesothelioma and asbestos-related lung cancers. He was awarded the Premier’s Award for Outstanding Cancer Research Scholar from the Cancer Institute NSW in 2012.

Helen Ke

Helen Ke is a medical oncology trainee and PhD candidate. Her PhD is investigating biomarkers and novel therapeutic targets for malignant mesothelioma.

Ben Kong

Dr Ben Kong is a medical oncologist with subspecialty interests in lung cancer, neuro-oncology and genitourinary cancers. His clinical training was conducted at Concord and Westmead Hospitals. He is currently a consultant at Royal North Shore Hospital and an Oncology Research Fellow at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre. He has recently submitted his PhD in cancer immunology with the Dendritic Cell Research Group at the ANZAC Research Institute, conducting pre-clinical evaluation of immune checkpoint inhibitor combinations with DC vaccination. Following his fellowship and PhD, he has ongoing interests in clinical trials and immuno-oncology.

Chee Lee

Associate Professor Chee Lee works as a Research Fellow and Clinical Lead at the CTC. He is also a staff specialist in medical oncology at St George Hospital and the Sutherland Hospital; and a visiting medical oncologist at St George Private Hospital. Chee's clinical practice is based around lung, gynaecological and other advanced cancers. His clinical and research interests are focused on identifying and developing better strategies to personalise treatment and improve outcomes for patients with advanced cancers. He is also currently a principal and co-investigator on a number of clinical trials that investigate novel therapeutic agents for ovarian, breast and lung cancers.

Katherine Lee

Dr Katherine Lee is a Junior Medical Officer at Westmead Hospital. She graduated with a Doctor of Medicine (MD) from the University of Sydney in 2020. Prior to undertaking her medical studies, she practised as a lawyer after completing her Bachelor of Laws (Hons)/Bachelor of Science from the University of Adelaide. She is passionate about radiology and radiation oncology with particular interests in medical education and research.

Lillian Leigh

Lillian Leigh is an Australian lawyer and a lung cancer patient research advocate. She was appointed by Australia’s Federal Health Minister in 2018 to the Advisory Council of Cancer Australia, where she also serves on the Research and Data Advisory Group and the PdCCRS Grants Review Committee.

Lillian sat for four years on the Consumer Advisory Panel and the Management Advisory Committee of Lung Foundation Australia’s Australasian Lung cancer Trials Group (ALTG). She is an Advisory Board member of Woolcock Institute’s Lung Cancer Research Network and a proud member of The ROS1ders. In 2019 and 2020, Lillian was selected to be a Mentor with the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) Supportive Training & Advocacy in Research and Science (STARS) Program. She was a recipient of the Patient Advocacy Award at the the 17th IASLC World Conference for Lung Cancer in Vienna.

Ben Markman

Dr Ben Markman is a medical oncologist with interests in lung cancer, gastrointestinal cancers, and early phase drug development. He currently works as a consultant at The Alfred Hospital and Cabrini Hospital in Melbourne, and also at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research, where his research focuses on lung cancer registries.

Henry Marshall

A/Prof Henry Marshall, FRACP PhD, is a senior staff Thoracic Physician at The Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane and Visiting Medical Officer at St Vincent’s Private Hospital Northside, Brisbane. His research, at the University of Queensland Thoracic Research Centre, aims to reduce the burden of disease caused by lung cancer by focussing on lung cancer early detection, screening and smoking cessation. He is an investigator on both of Australia’s lung cancer screening trials, the International Lung Screen Trial, and the pilot forerunner, the Queensland Lung Cancer Screening Study. He holds an NHMRC Investigator Grant to develop a smoking cessation chatbot powered by artificial intelligence, and a Queensland Health Research Fellowship and a Metro North HHS Research Fellowship for his work in lung cancer screening.

Sara McLaughlin-Barrett

Sara McLaughlin-Barrett has been a Lung Oncology Clinical Nurse Consultant for the past 10 years, and is currently working at Monash Health in Melbourne.

Sara has an expertise and passion for improving service delivery and patient outcomes. She has been involved in service redesign and independently developed Australia’s first cancer support mobile application ‘My Cancer Pal’ in 2016.

Sara sat on the Management Advisory Committee of Lung Foundation Australia’s Australasian Lung cancer Trials Group (ALTG) for 3 years, and has recently accepted the role as the Digital Lead for the Australian and New Zealand Lung Cancer Nurses Forum (ANZ-LCNF).

Barbara McPake

Professor Barbara McPake joined the Nossal Institute in July 2014. She was Director of the Institute for International Health and Development at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. Between 1991 and 2005, Barbara lectured in Health Economics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She also served as Head of the Health Policy Unit and Director of the Knowledge Program on Health Systems Development, supported by the UK Department for International Development.

Barbara’s research focuses on the application of economic theories and methods to the understanding of issues in health system strengthening in low and middle-income countries. Her work has focused on health financing, contracts within public health systems, health workforce, hospital reform and the health system issues of conflict affected states. Barbara is currently focused on the economic, demographic and epidemiological transitions undergone by middle income countries, and how health systems respond to questions of emerging infectious diseases exacerbated by economic transition, rising income and wealth inequalities, and epidemics of chronic disease.

Paul Mitchell

Dr Paul Mitchell holds the positions of Medical Oncologist at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer, Wellness and Research Centre at Austin Health in Melbourne, Australia, Director of the North-Eastern Melbourne Integrated Cancer Service (Cancer Network) and Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. He chairs the Thoracic Alliance for Cancer Trials (TACT) which brings together national and trans-national lung cancer trials groups and was President of the Australasian Lung Cancer Trials Group 2012-2016. He is Chair of the Lung Cancer Advisory Group of Cancer Australia and sits on the Program Assessing Committee of the Health Research Council of New Zealand.

Dr Mitchell trained in medical oncology in Auckland, New Zealand, followed by two years as Senior Registrar at the Royal Marsden Hospital, UK, before completing a Doctor of Medicine degree based on 3 years work at the Institute of Cancer Research, UK. He moved to Melbourne in 1995.

Melissa Moore

Melissa is a medical oncologist with sub-specialty interests in cancers of the lung, breast and upper gastrointestinal tract. Her research interests include body composition in cancer patients and the role of exercise.

Dr Moore undertook oncology training in Sydney followed by a lab-based PhD investigating the molecular mechanisms of cancer cachexia. She is the local principal investigator of a number of clinical trials for patients with lung cancer. She is passionate about increasing clinical trial participation.

Lucy Morgan

Associate Professor Lucy Morgan is an adult respiratory and sleep physician. Lucy is a proud graduate of the University of Newcastle, trained at Concord Hospital and completed a PhD in chronic lung disease at the University of Sydney.

Her clinical practice covers a wide range of lung problems including airways diseases ( asthma and COPD, bronchiectasis), pulmonary fibrosis, lung infections and lung cancer. Lucy is committed to a multidisciplinary approach to respiratory health care and has strong links to other clinicians.

Lucy has academic appointments at Macquarie University and Sydney University with a strong interest in teaching and training junior doctors and lung researchers throughout the Macquarie University Hospital, Nepean Hospital and Concord Hospital Clinical Schools. Lucy has a very active clinical research portfolio. She is chair of the Australasian Bronchiectasis Consortium and the clinical lead for the Australian Bronchiectasis Registry project. She is currently the president of the NSW TSANZ , is a Director of Lung Foundation Australia, a member of the Australian Lung Cancer Trials Group and Director of Research for the Nepean Lung Cancer Group. She is widely published and an invited speaker at National and International conferences.

Anna Nowak

Professor Anna Nowak is Pro Vice Chancellor Health and Medical Research at the University of Western Australia and a Medical Oncologist at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital (SCGH). She is a clinician scientist, with a laboratory-based PhD in tumor immunology, and she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical trials and quality of life research at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, University of Sydney. Hence, her interests cover the range from basic biological science research through to implementation of that research in clinical trials. She is Director of the National Research Centre for Asbestos Related Diseases (NCARD), an NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence with around 35 staff and students, has gained over $60M in funding over the course of her career, and has over 200 publications. Anna has been principal investigator for a number of local and national clinical trials in mesothelioma, and continues to treat patients with this disease. She also has interests in quality of life, imaging, staging, and tumor measurement, and maintains a translational research laboratory. She was the 2021 recipient of the International Mesothelioma Interest Group Wagner Medal for contributions to understanding of mesothelioma.

Diane Pascoe

Dr Diane Pascoe is a thoracic radiologist with more than 10 years of experience in diagnostic and interventional thoracic radiology, and is the Interim Deputy Director of Radiology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Victoria, Australia. She holds a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from Monash University, is a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiology and is a founding member of the Victorian Society of Thoracic Radiology. She is an honorary lecturer for the Diagnostic Radiology course at Melbourne University, with a focus on thoracic and trauma radiology. As an investigator in the current International Lung Screen Trial, Diane is regularly reporting lung cancer screening CTs and documenting trial data. She has published in the area of lung cancer radiology and ultra-low dose CT in the follow-up of pulmonary nodules, and has presented on lung cancer screening from a radiologist’s perspective and on computer-aided diagnosis in thoracic radiology. In 2019, she also assisted in updating the Lung Cancer Optimal Care pathway with Cancer Australia and provided radiological advice to the Cancer Australia Lung Cancer Screening enquiry.

Chris Paul

Professor Chris Paul is Head of Research with the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Newcastle, and co-Deputy Director of the Hunter Cancer Research Alliance. Chris is a behavioural scientist with experience in the development and evaluation of strategies for achieving behavioural change on an individual, system and population level. Her work spans preventive health issues and provision of patient care. Much of her early work was focused on cancer prevention and tobacco control, with an emphasis on the dissemination and adoption of effective behaviour change strategies. She retains a strong interest in cancer prevention and control, with a growing research portfolio relating to each of social disadvantage, chronic disease and health service delivery.

Nick Pavlakis

Professor Nick Pavlakis has nearly 20 years’ experience in the treatment and research of thoracic and gastrointestinal cancers. He has previously served on the Boards of Northern Cancer Institute and COSA.

His training and research background includes new drug development, biomarker research and clinical practice guidelines development.

He has served on the leadership committees of numerous national/international collaborative group trials in lung cancer, mesothelioma and gastrointestinal cancers. He was involved in the development of Australian clinical practice guidelines in lung cancer and mesothelioma, and has served as faculty of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer(IASLC) World Conference on Lung Cancer, its Mesothelioma task force and is current deputy chair of the IASLC Continuing Medical Education Committee; and is a faculty member of the MOGA/ASCO/ACCR Australia and Asia Pacific Clinical Oncology Research Development Workshop (ACORD).

Nicole Rankin

Dr Nicole Rankin is Senior Research Fellow, Implementation Science, in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney and Director, Implementation Science Program, at Sydney Health Partners, which is an Advanced Health Research and Translation Centre accredited by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). Her research interests are in lung cancer and the implementation of evidence-based interventions into practice and policy. She is passionate about empowering the Australian community to directly benefit from research and ensuring its translation into health outcomes.

Dr Rankin has published 64 manuscripts and won more than $11.2M in competitive funding. She is the lead investigator on an NHMRC Ideas Grant that is investigating the acceptability and feasibility of lung cancer screening implementation in Australian communities. She was awarded the Lesley J. Fleming Churchill Fellowship in 2020, to study international examples of lung cancer screening programs in disadvantaged communities.

Rachel Roberts-Thomson

Rachel Roberts-Thomson is an Adelaide Medical Oncologist who works at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

She specialises in treating patients with thoracic malignancies as well as melanoma. She has a particular interest in immunotherapeutics and in particular intralesional therapies.

She is heavily involved in education, clinical research and optimising treatment choices for her patients.

Shankar Siva

Associate Professor Shankar Siva is a Radiation Oncologist and current Cancer Council Victoria (CCV) Colebatch Fellow. He leads the Stereotactic Ablative Body Radiotherapy (SABR) program at the Peter Mac and is internationally recognised for his work in high technology radiotherapy delivery. He completed his PhD with the Molecular Radiation Biology (Martin) Laboratory focusing on translational investigations in precision high-dose lung radiotherapy. He published the first original research from Australia on the use of the SABR technique.

Shankar leads multiple clinical trials in the treatment of lung and urological cancers at the Peter Mac, and is chair of five Trans Tasman Radiation Oncology Group (TROG) studies in the fields of oligometastases, lung, prostate and kidney cancers. His international commitments include positions on the Board of Directors of the Radiosurgery Society (RSS), the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) Advanced Radiation Technology (ART) committee, American Society of Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Science Council, and Course Director of European Society for Radiotherapy (ESTRO) SBRT Asia. At an Australasian level, he is Co-Chair of the TROG Genitourinary Group, a member of the Scientific Committee of TOGA, amongst other leadership roles. He has research interests in high-tech radiotherapy delivery, SABR and radiation immunology.

Ben Solomon

Professor Ben Solomon (MBBS, PhD, FRACP) is a Medical Oncologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Colorado he returned to Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in 2006 where he practices as a Medical Oncologist with a focus on clinical and translational research in lung cancer, head and neck cancer and phase I studies of novel anti-cancer therapies.

He has been involved in the clinical development of targeted therapies in lung cancer, including the phase I through to phase III clinical trials with crizotinib that led to its approval in the treatment of ALK-rearranged NSCLC.

Emily Stone

Dr Stone is a Respiratory Physician and Acting Head of Thoracic Medicine within the Department of Thoracic Medicine and Lung Transplantation at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney. She is a conjoint Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales and the Chair of the St Vincent’s Hospital Lung Cancer Multidisciplinary Team (MDT).

Her chief clinical and research interests are in the fields of lung cancer, multidisciplinary team care and tobacco control. She trained in respiratory medicine in Australia and has recently completed her doctoral studies in clinical data science in multidisciplinary team care via the University of Sydney. She is the 2019 recipient of the IASLC Lectureship Award in Smoking Cessation.

She is the NSW Principal Investigator for the International Lung Screen Trial (ILST) investigating low dose CT screening for lung cancer in Australia and internationally. Committee memberships include the IASLC Tobacco Control and Smoking Cessation Committee (immediate past chair), Cancer Council Australia Working Party for Clinical Practice Guidelines in Lung Cancer, TSANZ ENDS/ENNDS Position Paper Working Party and Head of the Lung Cancer Assembly of the Asia-Pacific Society of Respirology.

Shalini Subramaniam

Dr Shalini Subramaniam is a Medical Oncologist based in Sydney and a Research Fellow at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre. Her main tumour interests are genitourinary, lung and breast cancers. She is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Sydney with the support of an NHMRC Postgraduate Scholarship. Her research will focus on developing and evaluating a communication aid to help clinicians better explain the survival benefits of different treatment options and enhance patient understanding of the effects of their anticancer therapy.

Monica Tang

Dr Monica Tang is a medical oncologist at St George Hospital with an interest in the use of routinely collected data to study cancer treatments and outcomes in real-world patients. She was awarded MBBS (Hons 1) from the University of New South Wales and trained in medical oncology at St George and Prince of Wales Hospitals, before undertaking a fellowship at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre. She is completing a PhD at the Centre for Big Data Research in Health at the University of New South Wales, with the support of a NHMRC Postgraduate Scholarship, a National Breast Cancer Foundation Postgraduate Scholarship and a Translational Cancer Research Network Clinical PhD Top-Up Scholarship. Her PhD examines how real-world data can be used to evaluate and optimise the utilisation of anti-cancer therapies in the Australian population.

Katrina Tonga

Dr Katrina Tonga is an early career clinician scientist who works as a Staff Specialist in the Department of Respiratory Medicine at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, NSW. She is a Conjoint Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales and Lecturer at the University of Sydney. Her clinical and research interests include airways disease (COPD, asthma), airway physiology and the use of innovative tools to monitor and diagnose respiratory disease early.

Craig Underhill

Dr Craig Underhill completed his Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery at Melbourne University. He completed medical oncology training in Melbourne and worked as the Senior Clinical Research Registrar at Guy's Hospital, London and Ludwig Institute Melbourne. In 1998 arrived in Albury-Wodonga and established a medical oncology practice and clinical trials unit which has developed expertise and infrastructure to ensure the initiation of high quality trials.

The research Unit lead by Dr Underhill has twice been awarded NSW Premier's Award for Innovation in Cancer Clinical Trials, the inaugural award in 2009 and then again in 2012.

Dr Underhill has developed partnerships with the private sector to improve access to cancer services and fostered shared care arrangements between local public and private health care providers. Dr Underhill has also built linkages and referral pathways between metropolitan and regional centres. His achievements in research collaborations have led to changes in practice in the care of patients with cancer, including the introduction of new standards of care and new models of care including the use of telehealth in clinical trials.

Dr Underhill is the VCCC Regional Oncology Lead and advocates for the increased access to clinical trials for regional Victorians and leads the VCCC teletrials program.

Shalini Vinod

Professor Shalini Vinod is a Radiation Oncologist at Liverpool Hospital. She specialises in the treatment of lung and breast cancers with expertise in radiation oncology, lung cancer, patterns of practice, multidisciplinary teams in cancer and MRI in radiation oncology. Her current research is focused on health services based research (patterns of care studies, multidisciplinary team care, quality indicators), predictive modelling of data to inform patient care (datamining research), incorporation of MRI imaging for radiotherapy planning and new technologies to improve the radiotherapy treatment of cancer.

Helen Westman

Helen Westman is the Lung Cancer Nurse Consultant at Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney. Helen has been an oncology nurse for 18 years, graduating from the University of Leeds in 2003, and has worked as a Clinical Nurse Consultant since 2013. In her current role she coordinates the care of patients with a suspected thoracic malignancy as well as those with early and advanced stage disease, working alongside the respiratory physicians, surgeons, and medical and radiation oncologists. Since moving to Australia in 2008 Helen has completed a Master of Cancer Nursing and a Master of Public Health, both through the University of Sydney. Committed to patient and nurse education, she has collaborated with a number of organisations to develop nationally available learning resources for patients and nurses on lung cancer and its treatments, as she believes that appropriate and relevant information empowers patients to make informed decisions about their care. Helen is a member of a number of national and international thoracic nursing organisations and is the New South Wales steering committee representative for the Australian and New Zealand Lung Cancer Nurses Forum (ANZLCNF).

Jonathan Williamson

Dr Jonathan Williamson is a respiratory and sleep physician who trained in Sydney, interstate and overseas in Heidelberg, Germany. He is a Consultant Respiratory and Sleep Physician at Liverpool and Macquarie University Hospitals. In addition to general respiratory pathology he has a subspecialised interest in lung cancer and bronchoscopic airway interventions. In his spare time, Dr Williamson chairs the Clinical Taskforce on COVID at Liverpool Hospital.