Dr Ajay Aggarwal is a Consultant Clinical Oncologist at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Trust, London. He has Honorary appointments at King’s College London, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and The MRC Clinical Trials Unit, London. His main research areas are health services research, clinical epidemiology and global health. Since 2013, he has been the Oncology Coordinator for the National Prostate Cancer Audit, based at the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

As part of this work, he developed the first-ever national radiotherapy outcomes public reporting program. In 2017, he completed a NIHR PhD Fellowship at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine exploring patient choice and the role of NHS hospital competition in the adoption of high cost medical devices for cancer treatment using quantiative and qualitative research methods. He has worked at the World Health Organisation in Geneva and has ongoing projects in Ghana, Botswana, and Tanzania aimed at building radiotherapy capacity and research capabilty. He was recently awarded in collaboration with the MD Anderson Cancer Centre, USA, a Wellcome Trust Digital Innovator Award, to use Artificial Intelligence to automate radiotherapy treatment planning for the treatment of urgent and emergency presentations of advanced cancers. He has previously gained a BSc in Management at Imperial College London, a MSc in the Science of Cancer from The Institute of Cancer Research and a MSc in Health, Population and Society from The London School of Economics where he undertook research into complex health systems and behavioural public policies.

Christopher Booth MD FRCPC is a Medical Oncologist and Health Services Researcher at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. He is a Professor of Oncology and holds the Canada Research Chair in Population Cancer Care. Dr. Booth studied medicine at Queen’s University and did postgraduate training in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology at the University of Toronto. Upon completing his clinical training he spent two years as a research fellow with the NCIC Clinical Trials Group. In his clinical practice he provides care to patients with gastrointestinal and urologic cancers.

Dr. Booth has an active program in population-based cancer research. The focus of his research program is to evaluate the quality of care delivered to patients in routine clinical practice and the effectiveness of new therapies in the general population. In 2016 Dr. Booth spent a sabbatical as a visiting scientist at the Regional Cancer Centre in Trivandrum, India. He continues to work closely with colleagues in India on various projects to improve accessibility and quality of cancer care. Dr. Booth serves as an Advisor (Implementation Research) to the National Cancer Grid of India. As a junior investigator he was awarded an inaugural Cancer Care Ontario Chair in Health Services Research. Dr. Booth has published over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts with first or senior author papers in Nature, JAMA, BMJ, Lancet Oncology, and Journal of Clinical Oncology. He has served as research supervisor for more than 25 trainees.

Marc Buyse holds a ScD in biostatistics from the Harvard School of Public Health (Boston, MA). He worked at the EORTC in Brussels and at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

He is the founder of the International Drug Development Institute (IDDI) and of CluePoints, two biostatistical service organizations based in the US and Europe. His interests include clinical trial design, meta-analysis, validation of biomarkers and surrogate endpoints, statistical methods in oncology, statistical detection of errors and fraud, statistical monitoring of clinical trials, and medical data sharing (http://publicationslist.org/marc.buyse ).

Girish Chinnaswamy completed his medical school and post graduate training in paediatrics at Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) Pondicherry. He further underwent subspeciality training in paediatric and adolescent oncology at the Royal London and Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals in the United Kingdom.

He subsequently pursued research in paediatric cancer pharmacology at the Northern Institute of Cancer Research, Newcastle University studying the pharmacokinetics and pharmacogenomics of anticancer drugs in Children. He has previously worked as a faculty in paediatric oncology at Christian Medical college hospital Vellore and is presently working as a consultant at Tata Memorial Hospital. His special interests are paediatric neuro-oncology and bone tumors in children.

Dr David Collingridge has been Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet Oncology since March 2002 and is also the Publishing Director for The Lancet’s specialty journals. Prior to his appointments at The Lancet, he gained a PhD in Tumour Biology from the Gray Cancer Institute/University College London, UK, and held research posts in the Department of Therapeutic Radiology, Yale University, CT, USA, and in the PET Oncology Group, Imperial College School of Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, London, UK. Dr Collingridge has won several awards for projects focused on cancer control in low-to-middle income countries; has published numerous peer-review articles, editorials, opinion pieces, and news reports; and has co-authored a text book on radiobiology. He currently also holds the position of Clinical Associate Professor of Radiation Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell Health, Lake Success, NY, USA.

Chris Frampton is Professor, Biostatistics, Department of Medicine/Psychological Medicine, University of Otago, and Director of a statistical consultancy company based in Christchurch, New Zealand.

In addition, he is the statistical representative on New Zealand’s regulatory committees - the Standing Committee on Therapeutic Trials, Medicines Adverse Reactions Committee, and Medicines Assessment Advisory Committee - and on a number of national and international data safety monitoring committees for ongoing randomised controlled trials. Professor Frampton has a specific interest in the design, conduct and analysis of phase I, II and III randomised controlled trials. With over 30 years of experience in biostatistics consultancy as applied to a wide range of clinical disciplines, he has co-authored over 700 peer reviewed publications.

Durga Gadgil is currently a consultant with the Tata Memorial Administrative and Research Council (TRAC). She is the chief coordinator for the two-year MSc in Clinical Research course conducted by the Tata Memorial Centre under the Homi Bhabha National Institute. She is also a GCP Trainer and conducts workshops and seminars for the same. Besides, she is instrumental in setting up the National Cancer Grid Contract Research Organization (NCG CRO) at TMH, which monitors NCG funded, multicentric studies carried out in India.

She has 31 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and retired in November 2015 as Area Head, Asia Pacific, Regional Medical Monitoring Organization, Pfizer. In this role, she was the line manager for medical monitors based in Australia, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Korea, Taiwan and Philippines. The team was responsible for monitoring all global studies from Phase 2 to 4 for medical aspects, ensuring patient eligibility, protocol adherence, data integrity and quality, in compliance with local and global ethical principles.

Durga is a certified NABH assessor for NABH Accreditation Standards for Clinical Trials (Ethics Committee, Investigator, Clinical Trial Site)

During her career span of 30+ years, she has worked in many pharmaceutical companies, all MNCs and one India company. She has experience in all fields related to a medical doctor’s role in the industry, like medico-marketing support, regulatory activities, pharmacovigilance and safety reporting, clinical operations, medical monitoring, auditing and training.

Allan Hackshaw is Professor of Epidemiology & Medical Statistics at University College London, and Deputy Director of the Cancer Research UK & UCL Cancer Trials Centre, one of the largest cancer trials units in the UK. He has over 26 years’ experience in the design, conduct and interpretation of clinical trials (phase I-III), observational studies (cohort and case-control) and systematic reviews/meta-analyses: for prevention, screening or treatment. The main areas of research have been cancer; antenatal & cancer screening; and tobacco and health..

He has been a key co-investigator on successful grant funding applications (>£80 million in total), and published more than 150 articles in journals and book chapters, plus sole or first author of four textbooks. He leads courses or modules on postgraduate courses (evidence-based medicine/clinical trials) at UCL and London School of Economics. He has been a member of national and international scientific grant funding and data monitoring committees. In 2013 he was named as one of the top 40 academic role models in biomedicine at UCL.

Mahesh (Max) Parmar is a Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology and Director of the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL and the Institute of Clinical Trials and Methodology at University College London.

Until 2012 he was an Associate Director of the National Cancer Research Network since its inception in 2001, an organisation which more than tripled the number of patients going into cancer studies in England. Max joined the MRC in 1987.  He has more than 300 publications in peer reviewed journals, many of which have had direct impact on policy, clinical practice and improving outcomes for patients. The Unit he directs is at the forefront of resolving internationally important questions, particularly in infectious diseases and cancer, and also aims to deliver swifter and more effective translation of scientific research into patient benefits. It does this by carrying out challenging and innovative studies and by developing and implementing methodological advances in study design, conduct and analysis.

C S Pramesh is the Director of the Tata Memorial Hospital and a thoracic surgeon at the Tata Memorial Centre, the largest cancer centre in India. He is also a member of the Clinical Research Secretariat of the hospital and the convener for the National Cancer Grid, a large network of 177 cancer centres in India. In the latter role, he works extensively on eliminating disparities in cancer care by enabling uniform standards of cancer care, promoting equity in access to care, rational use of healthcare resources and promoting multicentric collaborative research.

His primary clinical areas of interest include minimal invasive surgery and innovative treatment options in the management of esophageal and lung cancer. He is the Principal Investigator in several investigator-initiated research studies including randomised trials on cancer screening, surgical techniques, and neoadjuvant and adjuvant treatment of thoracic cancers. Professor Pramesh has strong interests in clinical trial designs, surgical trials, biostatistics and promoting collaborative research.

He is passionate about promoting training of early career physicians and surgeons in clinical research methods and conducts several formal and informal courses on clinical research methodology, biostatistics and scientific writing.

Professor Arnie Purushotham has been a Consultant Academic Surgeon for 24 years having worked in Glasgow, Cambridge and London. He is Professor of Breast Cancer at King’s College London and Consultant Surgeon at Guy’s and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust in 2005. He is the Director of King’s Health Partners Comprehensive Cancer Centre, Medical Director Tata Trusts Cancer Care Program and Senior Clinical Advisor to Cancer Research UK.

As a scientific researcher for the last 27 years, Professor Purushotham’s goal has been to drive high quality clinical and translational research that directly impacts on cancer patients. Key areas of research are patterns of metastatic spread, pathophysiology of lymphoedema, sentinel lymph node biopsy, novel optical intra-operative imaging, window of opportunity trials and cancer outcomes. His specific areas of expertise include study design, ethics and regulatory permissions, research governance, user involvement, window of opportunity studies and randomized controlled trials

Dr Ramakrishnan is a surgical oncologist (gastrointestinal oncology) and is one of the founding members of the South Indian Oncology Group (SIOG), a multicenter collaborative group formed to promote cancer research in India. He has been awarded the Global Challenges Research Networking Fund Grant by the Academy of Medical Sciences, UK for the project titled ‘Large bowel microbiome disease network - Creation of a proof of principle exemplar in colorectal cancer across three continents’. He has several publications in national and international journals.

Priya Ranganathan works as Professor of Anesthesiology at the Tata Memorial Centre, which is a tertiary-level cancer centre in Mumbai, India. She deals mainly with anesthesia for thoracic surgical procedures especially esophageal and lung resections.

She has a keen interest in clinical research methods and biostatistics and has been faculty on several short courses on these topics. She coordinates a Masters degree in Clinical Research at the Tata Memorial Centre. She is a member of the Institutional Review Board at Tata Memorial Hospital and is editor of the biostatistics section for the journal ‘Perspectives in Clinical Research’.

Priya completed her medical training at the King Edward Memorial Hospital, Mumbai and a fellowship in Clinical Anesthesia at the Singapore General Hospital..

Prachi Patil is a Professor in the Department of Digestive Diseases and Clinical Nutrition at the Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai, India. She completed her Gastroenterology training at the Tata Memorial Hospital. Her areas of interest are gastrointestinal cancers, therapeutic endoscopy and clinical nutrition. She is an ACORD alumnus (2010). She has been a member of the Institutional Review Board as well as the data and safety monitoring sub-committee at Tata Memorial Hospital. She has been a PI for several investigator-initiated as well as industry sponsored clinical trials.

Manju Sengar [MD (Medicine), DM (Medical Oncology)] is Professor, Adult hematolymphoid disease management group, Medical Oncology at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai. Dr Sengar completed her training in Medical Oncology from All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.

She has done her post graduate diploma in clinical trials from London School of hygiene and tropical medicine (external programme). She is an ACORD alumnus. She is a recipient of American Society of Hematology visitor training program fellowship at Duke University, Durham. Her main areas of clinical research are non Hodgkin lymphomas in HIV/AIDS and adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She is the principal investigator for several investigator-initiated studies and has participated in industry sponsored multi-centre clinical trials.

Dr. Tannock is Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Medical Biophysics at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and University of Toronto. He obtained his PhD in London, England and his MD at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. His clinical research investigates methods related to cancer clinical trials, and he chaired trials for men with metastatic prostate cancer that led to licensing of previous (mitoxantrone) and current (docetaxel) standard chemotherapy. His laboratory research evaluated effects of the tumour microenvironment on outcome of cancer therapy.

Dr. Tannock is an editor of the Basic Science of Oncology textbook, soon to be in its 6 th edition, that is used by trainees in all branches of oncology. He was a member of the Board of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) from 2001-2004, and was chair of the scientific audit committee of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) and a member of the EORTC Board from 2011-2017.  Dr Tannock was the first non-European to receive the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) award (2012) and he received the Allan Lichter visionary leader award from ASCO in 2019. Dr. Tannock received an honorary degree (DSc) from London University, UK in 2009, and was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2013.

Shivakumar Thiagarajan graduated from KIMS, Bangalore. After which he did his post-graduation in Otolaryngology from the Indian AirForce Hospital, Bangalore.

He further underwent sub-speciality training in Head and Neck Surgical Oncology from Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology, Bangalore and Tata Memorial centre, Mumbai. He was actively involved in both clinical and translational research during his training. He has worked as a faculty in both Otolaryngology and Head and Neck surgical oncology, during which he has been part of various research projects. He is presently working as a faculty in the department of Head and Neck surgical oncology, Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai, India. His primary clinical interest is in the management of oral, thyroid and skull base malignancies.

Matt Sydeshas been designing, conducting, analyzing, reporting & disseminating clinical trials, and seeking to improve them, for more than 25 years as a trial manager and then statistician.

 His particular areas of interest include: Unleashing potential of healthcare systems data (electronic health records, routinely-collected healthcare data) to support trials; Designing academic trials for regulator use & submission; Efficient & proportionate monitoring; Implementing novel designs, including multi-arm multi-stage platform trials; Function & conduct of trial oversight committees; Appropriate data sharing of clinical trial data; Dissemination of trial results.

 Matt served >15 years as a trial statistician and project lead on the STAMPEDE trial (SCT’s Trial of the Year 2018), a multi-arm multi-stage platform protocol that repeatedly delivered internationally practice-changing results. He has delivered trials that involved international collaboration in rare & common diseases.

Yogesh is a public health practitioner, researcher and a neurologist trained in India and the United States. He has experience of working on micro to macro aspects of health. Twelve years ago, he left his job in the US to work with rural and indigenous communities in central India that have limited access to care. His public health research has identified stroke and cancers as major public health problems in rural central India. He was instrumental in setting up a mortality surveillance system, conducting epidemiological studies on stroke and setting up a rural population-based cancer registry in the resource poor Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra in central India. He also led a cluster randomised controlled trial of a community-based intervention to reduce deaths due to stroke. He believes that data poverty hampers progress in improving the health of the rural and indigenous people. He currently works at Sangwari, a non-government organization in Surguja district of northern Chhattisgarh. Here, he is involved in implementing evidence-based care for sickle cell disease and other NCDs in the public health system. Yogesh serves on several technical committees of the Indian Council of Medical Research, is a member of the advisory group for the cause of death determination system of the Government of India, Sickle Cell Disease Technical Advisory Group of the National Health Mission Chhattisgarh and the Brain Health Initiative of the Government of Karnataka. He has published more than 60 research papers in international and national journals including in the Lancet, Lancet Global Health, Lancet Regional Health and Stroke. He is a recipient DBT/Wellcome trust fellowship in public health and the Bruce Shoenberg International Award in Neuroepidemiology by the American Academy of Neurology.

Xavier Paoletti is a professor of biostatistics at the University of Versailles St Quentin and at the Institut Curie, a cancer center, in Paris, France; he is a member of the INSERM U900 research unit dedicated to the development of statistical methods for clinical trials integrating biomarkers. After a phd on early phase clinical trials, Xavier had several positions at the EORTC, at Bichat university hospital then at the French NCI and finally in two leading cancer centers, Institut Curie and Gustave Roussy. His main interests are in the methods for dose finding trials, the designs of trials evaluating personalized medicine and the validation of surrogate endpoints. He is involved with Koji Oba in the secretariat of the GASTRIC collaboration for performing meta-analyses in gastric cancers and he coordinate the gynecology cancer inter group (GCIG) meta-analysis with Dr Ros Glasspool for performing meta-analyses in ovarian cancer.

Dr Balu Krishna Sasidharan is Professor of Radiation Oncology at CMC, Vellore. His research interests include upper GI, Head and Neck, Thorax, Prostate Cancer Research, Radiomics – Artificial Intelligence, Function Sparing Radiation, Mouse Tumour models, Immunotherapy and Radiation.

Michael Brada was a Professor of Radiation Oncology at the University of Liverpool and an Honorary Consultant in Clinical Oncology at Clatterbridge Cancer Centre; previously Professor of Clinical Oncology at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. He is a leading international expert in neuro-oncology and thoracic oncology with a particular expertise in the development, evaluation and implementation of new technologies. As an acknowledged national and international expert he served as the President of the European Association of Neuro-oncology (EANO), Chairman of the NCRI Brain Tumour Clinical Studies Group and as the President of The European Society of Therapeutic Radiation Oncology (ESTRO), a leading position in European radiotherapy. He was elected an honorary member of a number of national radiation oncology societies, a founding Fellow of European Academy of Cancer Sciences and was the Tata Memorial Orator in 2014. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award of ESTRO. He published benchmark studies of technical aspects and clinical outcome of stereotactic radiotherapy and key studies of late toxicity of cranial irradiation. Has been involved in the evaluation of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in glial tumours including initial studies of Temozolomide. In the last decade the principal focus has been on lung cancer, developing and testing novel technologies including motion management techniques, high precision irradiation and population studies on lung cancer radiotherapy. He was also involved in evaluation of novel technologies through systematic reviews and meta-analyses, which have not infrequently generated heated debates. Throughout his career he had a deep interest in improving methods of care and follow-up of cancer patients with studies resulting in changes to clinical practice. He authored and coauthored more than 270 peer-reviewed articles, editorials, and book chapters.

After graduating from the University of Pune, India, Dr Khot trained in Internal Medicine in India and the UK, where he qualified as a Member of the Royal College of Physicians. He completed training in laboratory and clinical Haematology in London, UK, obtaining a Fellowship from the Royal College of Pathologists. This was followed by a clinical research fellowship involving early phase clinical trials in cell therapies and myeloma at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. Dr Khot has published in international journals and presented in international conferences in his fields of interest of cell therapies, haematopoietic progenitor cell transplantation, myeloma and early phase clinical trials. He currently works as a Consultant Haematologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Bendigo Health and is an investigator in all phases of clinical trials involving novel agents in myeloma and advanced haematologic malignancies.

Dr. Aju Mathew is an American Board-certified medical oncologist and hematologist in Kochi. He is currently working at the MOSC Medical College (a rural medical college) and the Ernakulam Medical Centre (a private urban centre). He is also a senior medical advisor for the Karkinos Healthcare, a cancer care start-up aiming to set up distributed cancer care centres across India. He is also a consultant at the Trivandrum Institute for Palliative Sciences, a WHO centre for palliative medicine. Previously, he was an attending physician at the National Cancer Institute-designated Markey Cancer Center of the University of Kentucky. He was also the Co-Director of the Hematology/Oncology fellowship training program. After graduating in medicine from the Government Medical College Trivandrum in Kerala, he has attained further training in Cambridge University (epidemiology) in England, Karolinska Institute (molecular biology) in Sweden and University of Pittsburgh (residency in internal medicine and fellowship in hematology/medical oncology). He has published in major high impact journals in the field of medicine. He has also received awards from the American Society of Clinical Oncology and American Association of Cancer Research for his scholarly work.

Dr Kang is responsible for leading the newly formed team and executing against its

three strategic focus areas: Enteric & Diarrheal Diseases, Diagnostics and Genomics,

Epidemiology & Modelling. In addition to serving on the foundation’s Scientific Advisory Committee, she has been a Professor in the Division of Gastrointestinal Sciences, Christian Medical College (CMC) in Vellore, India. She is a physician scientist working on vaccines and public health, particularly focused on children and enteric infectious disease in India. Her research ranged from water and sanitation to vaccines and nutrition, and her team is one the strongest multidisciplinary research groups in India, internationally recognized and consistently funded by the Wellcome Trust and the National Institutes of Health, and

more recently, the foundation.

While based at CMC for most of her career, she also worked for the Government of India, leading and building India's first translational health science institute. She has served on WHO headquarters, WHO Southeast Asia and Indian committees related to vaccines, covering policies and introductions, and in more technical areas, safety, new product development, modelling and biological standardization. She has been a mentor and guide for women at work and outside of work.

Duncan Gilbert graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1997 and trained in Clinical Oncology in Sussex and at the Royal Marsden Hospitals. As part of his training, he undertook a PhD in the molecular biology of testicular cancer at the Institute of Cancer Research and also spent 6 months working at the Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital, Nepal. He is now a Consultant Clinical Oncologist treating patients with pelvic cancers at the Sussex Cancer Centre in Brighton, Sussex and an Associate Professor of Cancer and Clinical Trials at MRC Clinical Trials where he is the chief investigator for REFINE, testing extended intervals of immune checkpoint inhibitors in renal cancer and melanoma, and has senior roles within the STAMPEDE and Add Aspirin trial teams.

Dr. Berry is the Chief and Medical Director of the Carlo Fidani Cancer Centre and the Cancer Program at Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. He is the Regional Vice President for Ontario Health - Cancer Care Ontario and an Adjunct Professor of Oncology at Queen’s University.

Dr. Berry’s clinical specialty is gastrointestinal cancer.  He is a clinical trialist who has led and participated in key trials for the Canadian Cancer Trials Group and is the Co-Chair of the Gastrointestinal Disease Site Group of the Cancer Cancer Ontario Program in Evidence Based Care. 

Dr. Berry is a medical educator who has previously served as Chair of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Specialty Committee for Medical Oncology.  He is the Co-Director of Education for the Queen’s Global Oncology Program and one of the co-founders of OncologyEducation.com. 

His other academic interest is the bioethical issues surrounding the care of people with cancer. He is a former member and ethics advisor to the pan-Canadian Oncology Drug Review Expert Review Committee and has served on the American Society of Clinical Oncology Ethics Committee.

Dr. Ginsburg is a medical oncologist and global women’s health researcher with nearly 20 years of experience in global cancer prevention and control. In 2022 she joined the U.S. National Institutes of Health, as a Senior Advisor for Clinical Research at the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Global Health. Formerly based at the University of Toronto, Canada, she was a Medical Officer at the World Health Organization (WHO) Geneva, Switzerland (2015-2016) where she provided technical support on cancer control for countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle-East, and Latin America, and contributed to the development of normative guidance on cancer early detection and screening.

Dr. Ginsburg has since served as an ad hoc consultant to WHO, UNFPA, and IAEA-Programme of Action for Cancer Therapy (PACT). From 2017-2021 she was the Director of the High-Risk Cancer Genetics Program at the Perlmutter Cancer Center, an NCI Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, and an Associate Professor in the Departments of Population Health and Medicine at NYU School of Medicine. Prior to joining the NCI, in 2021 Dr. Ginsburg was a Senior Visiting Scientist in the Cancer Surveillance Unit at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the WHO’s specialized cancer agency. Her research is focused on improving equitable access to breast and cervical cancer prevention and control. She has authored >100 peer-reviewed publications and over a dozen commentaries, and co-chairs The Lancet Commission on women, power, and cancer. In 2022 she received the Humanitarian Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

Dr. Sudha Sivaram is a Program Director and leads the portfolio of global cancer research training at the Center for Global Health at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). In this capacity, she works with colleagues across NCI and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop funding initiatives, and coordinate training and research education programs that seek to build capacity and support career development of early-stage scientists in cancer research in diverse global settings.  She led the development of NCI’s first broad global research training initiative.  Dr. Sivaram is a member of several trans-NCI and NIH committees that focus on advancing science in key biomedical research areas such as implementation research in cancer control and obesity and cancer. She contributes to the work of the Cancer Moonshot^TM network of direct patient engagement that has developed workshops and funding initiatives to stimulate patient engagement in cancer research.  Dr. Sivaram participates in NCI-wide working groups to advance research in global health, improve workforce diversity and develop research programs that foster equity and allow inclusion of diverse participants and perspectives.

Dr. Sivaram earned her doctorate in public health and epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.  Following her doctoral degree, she continued at Hopkins serving as Faculty in the Department of Epidemiology where her research was supported by the US National Institutes of Health as well as private non-profit foundations. Employing principles of social science research, epidemiology and implementation research, Dr. Sivaram’s work focused on disease prevention and the development of community-based interventions for the control of cervical cancer and HIV/AIDS in rural populations.  She has published over 30 peer reviewed articles, book chapters and essays.  Dr. Sivaram serves as a mentor to students in public health and currently serves as an Academic Editor for the journal, PLOS Global Public Health. She recently completed a Fullbright-Nehru academic research fellowship in India whose goal was to work with cancer survivors and their care givers to understand patient-reported measures to improve quality of life during and after cancer treatment.

Satish Gopal, M.D., M.P.H. was appointed Director of the Center for Global Health (CGH) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 2020. In this role, he oversees the development of initiatives and collaborations with other NCI and NIH partners, NCI-designated cancer centers, and other governmental and non-governmental organizations to support cancer research, promote science-based cancer control, and build research capacity in low- and middle-income countries. Before coming to NCI, Dr. Gopal was the Cancer Program Director for the University of North Carolina collaboration with the Malawi Ministry of Health.

Dr. Gopal earned his medical degree from the Duke University School of Medicine in 2001. He completed training in internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Michigan, lived and worked in Tanzania from 2007 to 2009, then returned to the United States to pursue medical oncology and infectious disease training at the University of North Carolina. He lived with his family in Malawi from 2012 to 2019, when he was the only medical oncologist in the country and treated public sector cancer patients at the national teaching hospital alongside Malawian colleagues. He returned frequently to provide clinical service in the North Carolina Cancer Hospital.

As an extramural physician-scientist, his NIH-funded research program focused on epidemiologic, clinical, and translational studies of lymphoma and HIV-associated malignancies in Africa and he oversaw a multidisciplinary cancer research portfolio which sought to address many of the commonest cancers in the region, including cervical, breast, and esophageal cancer. This program generated some of the first published studies in Africa to describe detailed molecular profiles for specific cancer types, characterize several unique lymphoproliferative disorders, report clinical trials of targeted cancer therapy, perform economic evaluations of cancer treatment, and integrate patient-reported outcome measurements. He has authored more than 100 publications in journals such as NEJM, JAMA, Lancet, and Nature Medicine among others, and mentored more than 30 early-career U.S. and African pre- and post-doctoral cancer researchers, many of whom hold academic positions in global oncology at NCI-designated cancer centers, African academic institutions, and other international organizations. He has spoken widely and provided leadership and expertise on various working groups, review committees, and boards. He previously served as the Associate Chair for African International Sites for the NCI AIDS Malignancy Consortium (AMC) with oversight responsibility for the network’s African clinical trials. He currently serves as the US representative on the Scientific Council for the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).