Board of Directors

Dr. Chang is a thoracic radiation oncologist with more than 30 years of experience with clinical care and research focusing on lung cancer. He holds a tenured Texas 4000 Distinguished Professorship and is Director of Stereotactic Ablative Radiotherapy at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Radiation Oncology and has been recognized with the Best Doctors of America award. He is a voting committee member of NCCN thoracic guidelines and co-chair of the international particle therapy PTCOG scientific program committee. As one of the pioneers in the field of stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR, or SBRT: stereotactic body radiation therapy), proton therapy, and immunotherapy for lung cancer, he published more than 300 peer-reviewed articles in prestigious journals, including LANCET, Nature, JAMA, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Journal of Thoracic Oncology, RED J, Green J, and various others. His prospective studies including randomized studies comparing surgery vs. SABR in operable stage I lung cancer, stereotactic proton vs. photon radiotherapy in challenging early-stage lung cancer, immunotherapy plus SABR (I-SABR) vs. SABR alone in early-stage lung cancer were the first reported studies in the world. He led the first concurrent proton therapy and chemotherapy in stage III lung cancer, and his team implemented the first intensity-modulated proton therapy (IMPT) in lung cancer. His research has helped to establish the role of SABR, proton therapy, and I-SABR in lung cancer. Additionally, on behalf of national and international societies, including the IASLC ART committee, he has led several important consensus statements that have significantly impacted the radiation oncology community about SABR, proton therapy in lung cancer, IMPT in moving thoracic cancers, management of small cell lung cancer, oligometastasis, and re-irradiation of thoracic cancer. 

Dr. Carlos Gil Ferreira completed his training in Medical Oncology at the National Cancer Institute (INCA) in Rio de Janeiro in 1997, and his PhD in Experimental Oncology at the VUMC in Amsterdam in 2001 (under the supervision of Dr. Giuseppe Giaccone). 

His Lab at INCA pioneered some of the first local independent phase I, II and III trials, and biomarker validation studies in Brazil. Dr. Ferreira has published over 150 peer reviewed articles and book chapters.  One particular focus of his work has been the improvement of access to molecular testing in Brazil. Due to these efforts to broaden access to precision medicine, Dr. Ferreira received the Partners in Progress Award from ASCO in 2020.   

Dr. Ferreira’s group has developed multidisciplinary care for lung cancer, as well as improved the awareness of lung cancer.  He was awarded the Latin America Cancer Care Team Winner in 2017 and 2019 by the IASLC. 

Dr. Ferreira is an active member of the IASLC since 2003 and has served on the IASLC Fellowship Committee since 2013 (co-chair 2015-2017) and as a member of the IASLC Bylaws Committee.  He served as a member of the AACR International Affairs Committee between 2015-2018. 

From March 2018, Dr. Ferreira was appointed as President of the Oncoclinicas Institute and Chief Medical Officer of Oncoclinicas Group in Brazil. The main goal of his current work is continuous medical education in oncology and mentorship of young Brazilian oncologists. 

Jhanelle E. Gray, M.D. is the Department Chair, Program Leader and a Senior Member for Thoracic Oncology at the Moffitt Cancer Center (MCC), Co-Leader of the Cancer Center Support Grant Molecular Medicine Program, and Professor in the Department of Oncologic Sciences at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine. 

A renowned Thoracic medical oncologist and clinical investigator, Dr. Gray is actively involved and leads numerous clinical research trials that investigate novel immunotherapeutic and targeted therapy drug combinations for lung cancer which have greatly influenced standard of care treatment. Her research has generated over 80 publications in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals, including original manuscripts and reviews. A leader in NCI cooperative group trials and Chair of the IASLC Membership Committee, Dr. Gray received her Bachelor of Science from the University of Florida, Medical Degree from Cornell University Medical College, and completed her internship and residency in Internal Medicine at The New York Presbyterian Hospital - Cornell. Following, she completed her Hematology/Medical Oncology Fellowship at Moffitt Cancer Center. 

Dr. Gray is actively involved as a member of the MCC Scientific Leadership Council and Clinical Research Action Committee. Globally she is the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2022 Meeting Education Program Chair-elect while also serving as a member of the ASCO Lung Scientific Program Committee, IASLC Women in Thoracic Oncology Working Group and Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) Lung Working Group.

Dr. Kim graduated from Seoul National University College of Medicine and trained at Seoul National University Hospital Cardiovascular Surgical Residency Program and took the Advanced General Thoracic Surgical Fellowship Program at the Mayo Clinic, USA.  After military service, he joined the Department of Thoracic Surgery at Seoul National University Hospital as a faculty member.  

Dr. Kim is an active member of the IASLC, the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS), the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS), and other international and domestic academic societies.  

Clinically, his main interest is lung cancer surgery.  Dr. Kim is one of the leading members of minimally invasive surgery and served as a board of directors for the International Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery (ISMICS).  

Academically, he has been conducting lung cancer genomic research. His group discovered KIF5B-RET fusion mutation in the lung adenocarcinoma for the first time in the world. After that, using whole-genome sequencing, his group found the genomic mechanism of fusion gene formation and published it in Cell.  Dr. Kim’s team has conducted various research solving the unmet needs of lung cancer genomics and leads the development of lung cancer panel tests in his institution. They established a lung alveolar organoid model to test SARS-CoV-2 infection, published in Cell Stem Cell.  

As the Chairman of KALC (Korean Association for Lung Cancer), Dr. Kim believes that international collaboration is critical to achieving the goal of conquering lung cancer, and he is encouraging the active participation of KALC members in the IASLC. 

Dr. Natasha Leighl leads the Thoracic Medical Oncology Group at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, and is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. She holds the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation OSI Pharmaceuticals Foundation Chair in Cancer New Drug Development. She has published over 350 peer-reviewed papers, held multiple peer-reviewed grants, and mentored many trainees who have gone on to leadership roles in oncology around the world. In 2019, she was awarded the American Society of Clinical Oncology Excellence in Teaching Award. Her passion for improving patient care has driven her research in lung cancer drug development lung cancer diagnostics, including liquid biopsy, guideline development, and outcomes research.

She has led several international and cooperative group studies in lung cancer, served on the Lung Disease Site Group Executive of the Canadian Cancer Clinical Trials Group (CCTG), was Co-Chair of the CCTG Committee on Economic Analysis, Congress Co-President of the 2018 World Conference on Lung Cancer, and serves on the ASCO Thoracic Guidelines Advisory Group, ESMO Guidelines Group (Lead, non-metastatic lung cancer), is Faculty Coordinator (Metastatic Lung Cancer) for the ESMO Education Committee, Chair of the International Society of Liquid Biopsy Education Committee and co-Chair of the 2024 European Lung Cancer Congress. She is Deputy Editor of Critical Reviews in Hematology/Oncology, Section co-editor of Therapeutic Advances in Medical Oncology, and serves on multiple editorial boards, including the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, and was a previous Web Editor. She is a strong supporter of patient advocacy and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lung Cancer Foundation of America, she is the Past President of Lung Cancer Canada (2009-2016) and an Honorary Chair of the Exon20 Group. 

Dr. Quist is an associate professor at the Copenhagen University and a Physiotherapist clinician-researcher with 20 years expertise in exercise for patients with cancer at the University Hospital of Copenhagen (Rigshospitalet). He is the co-founder of the “body and Cancer” and founder of the EXHALE program.  He received a PhD from The University of Copenhagen in 2015 on the topic of Exercise and Advanced Stage Lung Cancer.  Dr. Quist’s research area is exercise and lung cancer in all stages (early and advance) and in different treatment modalities (diagnostic, surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and immunotherapy). His focus is to prepare patients for treatment, optimizing functional capacity, and maintaining or improving quality of life.

Dr. Quist served on the board of directors of the Danish Lung Cancer Group in 2017 and was responsible for developing guidelines for rehabilitation in lung cancer in Denmark. He has been a member of the IASLC Nurses and Allied Health Professionals Committee since 2017.   

In addition to research, Dr. Quist co-founded and co-created two exercise communities in Denmark (Proof of Life and PACT) for cancer survivors and patients with cancer. Proof of life is an exercise community for young cancer survivors and PACT (physical activity after cancer treatment) is an exercise community for cancer patients. He received the Danish Cancer Society honor award in 2015 for his voluntary work to keep patients with cancer active, and in 2017 received the IASLC Nursing and Allied Health Lectureship Award.

Dr. Antoni Rosell (Barcelona, 1963) Pulmonologist (1992), PhD in Medicine (2000), Diploma in Biostatistics (2004), European Certification in Respiratory Medicine (HERMES) (2009), and Professor of Medicine at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (2021), he has held the position of Chief of Respiratory Endoscopy Unit of the Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge (Barcelona) between 2005 and 2018. Since then, he is the Clinical Director of the Thoracic Institute of the Hospital Universitari of the Germans Trias I Pujol Hospital (Barcelona), managing the Pulmonology Service and the Thoracic Surgery Service. He has made short stages in international hospitals and research centers between 1998 and 2013, learning autofluorescence, endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS), rigid bronchoscopy, and lung cancer screening programs. He has been the introducer in Spain of the EBUS, the autofluorescence bronchoscopy, and the non-electromagnetic navigation system (Archimedes©). During 2012-2018, he developed an international fellowship on interventional bronchoscopy. He is a referral in this field, specifically rigid bronchoscopy and stenting. He leads the Translational Pulmonology Research Group of the Germans Trias Research Institute (IGTP).

Dr. Rosell is a reviewer of research projects of various public health agencies and international journals. He published 22 articles in Q1, h-Index of 16, and is the co-author of 3 patents. Together with the group of chemists, an antibiofilm silver-eluting stent was developed and tested in an animal model. His research is focused on radiomics and radiogenomics applied in lung cancer screening, and he is participating in the International Lung Screen Trial (ISLT). He chaired the 3rd European Congress of the EABIP (European Association for Bronchology and Interventional Pulmonology) in 2015 and was the vice president of the World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) in Barcelona (2019). 

Dr. Sequist is originally from Michigan and studied chemistry at Cornell University. She received her MD from Harvard Medical School and trained in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and in hematology/oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where she also received an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. She joined the faculty at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in 2005 and has an active clinical and translational research career, as well as a busy practice caring for patients with lung cancer. She is currently the Landry Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Director of the Center for Innovation in Early Cancer Detection at Massachusetts General Hospital. She has held grants from the NIH, the DOD, and many private foundations. Dr. Sequist’s research focuses on studying targeted therapeutics for lung cancer and novel technologies to detect cancer earlier. In her free time, she likes to spend time with her husband, two sons, and her dog, read and travel. 

Professor Benjamin Solomon is a medical oncologist and head of the lung medical oncology service at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. Following his training in medical oncology, he was a recipient of an IASLC fellowship in 2004 and proceeded to do a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Colorado under the supervision of Professors Paul Bunn and Fred Hirsch. He returned to Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in 2006, where he heads the Lung Medical Oncology Service and is a Group Leader of the Molecular Therapeutics and Biomarkers Laboratory in the Research Division. His clinical trial work focuses on the identification of novel therapies for lung cancer, including novel targeted therapy and immunotherapy approaches. He has been involved in practice-changing clinical trials with novel inhibitors of ALK, ROS1, NTRK, BRAF, cMET, RET, and KRAS, including pivotal trials leading to registration of drugs including crizotinib, ceritinib, lorlatinib, repotrectinib, and selpercatinib.

He has more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and has been recognized as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022). He is a founding board member of the Thoracic Oncology Group of Australasia (TOGA) and is a Board Member of the Cancer Council of Victoria. He has served on several committees for the IASLC, including the fellowship committee, and was chair from 2016-2018. 

Dr. Paula Ugalde graduated in 1995 and by 2000 completed training in thoracic surgery in Brazil. She did her postdoctoral research and obtained a master’s degree in 2004 when she became an assistant professor at the Federal University of Bahia Medical School. For the next 3-years, Dr. Ugalde completed a fellowship in Thoracic Surgery at Laval University in Quebec, Canada, and in 2007-2008, a Thoracic Surgery Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. In 2013, she was recruited back to Quebec and began as an associate professor at Laval University. She was soon named director of the Thoracic Oncology research program. 

Dr. Ugalde established herself as a thoracic surgeon dedicated to research with an extensive record of publications, including a body of work on thoracic surgery using innovative approaches for lung cancer. Dr. Ugalde oversaw the creation of the lung cancer database at Laval University, and the university became the largest contributor in the world of cases to the IASLC database. She was awarded the IASLC Clifton F. Mountain Lectureship Award in 2019 and appointed Chair of the Database Committee of SPFC of the IASLC. In 2019, she was accepted as a member of the AATS. She has performed peer-review for the society’s journals as well as for other journals, including the EJCTS, and given lectures at AATS symposia and worldwide. Additionally, she introduced minimally invasive thoracic surgery in Brazil and Latin America and continues to pursue this mission as co-chair of International Affairs for the Women in Thoracic Surgery Society. 

Dr. Ignacio Wistuba is Professor and Chair of the Department of Translational Molecular Pathology with joint appointment in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology (THNMO) and co-director of the Khalifa Institute of Personalized Cancer Institute at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, USA. He obtained his medical doctorate from Universidad Austral, Valdivia, Chile (1985), and completed surgical pathology training at Catholic University, Santiago, Chile (1989). Then, he trained for nearly five years as a post-doctoral research fellow in lung cancer molecular pathology at the Hamon Cancer Center at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, USA, under the mentorship of Drs. Adi Gazdar and John Minna (1994-1999). After spending five years in Chile as a professor of pathology at Catholic University Medical School, Dr. Wistuba joined MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2003 in the departments of Pathology and THNMO to lead a lung cancer molecular pathology program. His major research interest is the elucidation of the molecular abnormalities involved in the pathogenesis and progression of lung cancer and the development of predictive biomarkers for targeted and immune-oncology therapies.

He has co-authored over 750 papers in peer-reviewed journals and several book chapters. He is the principal investigator (PI) and co-PI on several molecular pathology and biomarker projects supported by multi-investigators and multi-institutional grants and research agreements in thoracic malignancies. Dr. Wistuba has been highly involved in IASLC activities for the last 17 years by serving as a member of various committees, including the Pathology Committee that he chaired from 2017-2020. Since moving to the United States in 2023, Dr. Wistuba has participated as a member of scientific organizing committees, speaker, and attendee to all WCLC and LALCA meetings and several regional IASLC meetings. He received IASLC's Mary J. Matthews Pathology/Translational Research Award in 2018. 

Wen-Zhao Zhong received his Ph.D. in Oncology, specializing in thoracic surgery, from Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China. At present, he is serving as the chief physician of thoracic neoplasms surgery at Guangdong Lung Cancer Institute. Wen-Zhao is broadly interested in the area of clinical trials and translational research involving early-stage and locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer, which include systemic treatment modality of stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), personalized perioperative treatment, diagnosis and management of pulmonary nodules as well as early screening of lung cancer. His recent projects involve personalized treatment modalities for localized mutant non-small cell lung cancer and ctDNA-guided personalized treatment.

Recent relevant research has been published in high-impact journals such as the Journal of Clinical Oncology, NPJ Precision Oncology, Journal of Thoracic Oncology, etc. In 2022 WCLC, he achieved the TSUGUO NARUKE Lectureship award for surgery in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the field of thoracic oncology and particularly to thoracic surgery.