Linda W. Martin, MD, MPH, FACS
Professor and Chief, Thoracic Surgery
University of Virginia Health System

Dr. Martin is Chief of Thoracic Surgery at University of Virginia. She is Associate Program Director for the Cardiothoracic Residency. She was the Surgery Clerkship Director for the medical school from 2017 – 2021. She co-leads Enhanced Recovery Program for Thoracic Surgery. Her patient satisfaction scores have exceeded the 95th percentile for the past 5 years. She received the Dean’s Award for Clinical Excellence in 2022. Under her leadership, UVA has received 3-star STS rating for lobectomy outcomes 3 times.

She is principal investigator for two stage 3 lung cancer trials; Vice-Chair of the Respiratory Committee for Alliance; STS representative to the Commission on Cancer; Vice-Chair of the General Thoracic Surgical Club. She was Perioperative Tract Program Chair for the 2023 AATS Annual Meeting, and is Program Co-Chair for the World Conference for Lung Cancer in 2024 to be held in San Diego in September. She has authored more than 70 articles in journals including JCO, Annals of Surgery, Annals of Thoracic Surgery, and JTCVS.

Siva Raja MD, PhD, FACS
Associate Professor of Surgery
Lerner College of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic
Case Western School of Medicine

Dr. Raja is a general thoracic surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic who specializes in the esophageal disorders. He received his MD and PhD at the University of Pittsburgh. He trained ah the Brigham and women's hospital of Harvard medical school in Boston and at the Cleveland clinic. He is the surgical director for the Cleveland clinic center for esophageal diseases. He is a specialist in the treatment of esophageal cancer via esophagectomy as well as in treating other esophageal maladies such as complex Esophageal fistulae, achalasia and redo anti-reflux surgery. He has authored over 100 original papers on esophageal surgery.

Prasad S. Adusumilli, MD, FACS
MSK Thoracic Surgeon & Cellular Therapist
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre

Prasad Adusumilli is a thoracic surgeon-scientist and Vice Chair of Translational Research in Dept. of Surgery at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York. In addition to performing complex and minimally invasive oncological resections, Dr Adusumilli research focuses on solid tumor immunology and immunotherapy. Supported by NCI R01 and Dept of Defense awards, his laboratory’s publications were among the first to highlight the prognostic importance of tumoral and stromal immune cell infiltration in thoracic cancers that provided the foundation for investigating immune modulation. His laboratory established clinically relevant solid tumor models and investigated regional delivery of biological therapies, including oncolytic viruses and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. The resulting mechanistic data has been translated to clinical trials including combination immunotherapy to reactivate both CAR T-cell and endogenous immunity by use of cell-intrinsic and extrinsic checkpoint blockade strategies. Adusumilli laboratory has identified new antigen-targets and costimulatory domains for CAR T-cell therapy. His discoveries in lung adenocarcinoma pathobiology were included in WHO classification of lung tumors and resulted in changes in clinical practice. Dr. Adusumilli has mentored >150 junior faculty, post-docs and MDs resulting in >300 publications, one-third in journals with IF>10 and awarded >100 research awards. He is an elected member of Fleischner Society, American Society of Clinical Investigation, American Surgical Association and American Association for Thoracic Surgery.

Jonathan Spicer, BSc (Hon), MD, PhD, FRCS
Assistant Professor, Program Director, Advanced Thoracic and Upper GI Surgical Oncology Fellowship Department of Surgery, McGill University

Dr. Spicer was born and raised in Montreal and completed his Bachelor degree in Science at McGill University. He continued his medical training at McGill where he earned his MD, after which he moved to Vancouver and completed his surgical internship at the University of British Columbia. He returned to McGill the following year and completed his general surgical training during which he participated in the Surgeon Scientist and Clinical Investigator programs as an FRSQ funded student and earned a PhD in Experimental Surgery.

Dr. Spicer completed his training in Cardiothoracic Surgery at the world’s largest cancer center – University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. His clinical interests focus on minimally invasive approaches to lung cancer as well as complex resections for advanced thoracic malignancies. He has paired his clinical focus with a comprehensive research program in cancer metastasis. His laboratory studies the link between inflammation and metastasis with a particular focus on neutrophil and circulating tumor cell interactions.