Board of Directors

Dr. Andrea Bezjak joined the IASLC Board of Directors in 2019. She has previously served on both the Advanced Radiation Technology and Bylaws Committees and acted as co-president of the 2018 WCLC in Toronto. Since 2011, she has also helped steward the Journal of Thoracic Oncology as an associate editor.

Dr. Bezjak is a University of Toronto Professor in the Departments of Radiation Oncology and Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, and a Princess Margaret Cancer Centre/University Health Network staff radiation oncologist. She has held a succession of leadership positions in the Radiation Medicine Program and the Lung Cancer Site group, helping create a program of high precision radiotherapy in lung cancer by utilizing cutting-edge technology.

Throughout her career, Dr Bezjak has authored and co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed articles and has been a principal investigator of several multi-center clinical trials in lung cancer. Her research is in image-guided and stereotactic radiotherapy for lung cancer, palliative radiation, quality of life and symptom assessment. Her clinical practice is focused on lung cancer, thymomas and palliative radiotherapy. She is also an educator and is the current director of the radiation oncology residency training program at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Julie Brahmer joined the IASLC Board of Directors in 2017 and serves on the Patient Advocacy and North America Conference on Lung Cancer Program Committees. An active clinical leader in the treatment of lung cancer and mesothelioma, she serves as Director of the Johns Hopkins’ Thoracic Oncology Center of Excellence and helps run the multidisciplinary disease program for Johns Hopkins’ Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Bayview.

Dr. Brahmer’s research and clinical practice focus on the development of new therapies for the treatment and prevention of lung cancer. She has spearheaded early-phase immunotherapy clinical trials, including one of the first in-human trials of PD-1/PD-L1 antibody inhibitors. Leading international phase III studies of immunotherapy in lung cancer, Dr. Brahmer helped secure FDA approval for PD-1 antibodies for lung cancer treatment.

An active member of the oncology community and ardent advocate for her patients, Dr. Brahmer was awarded the Fellowship of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) for her volunteer activities. She is a founding board member of Women Against Lung Cancer, now known as Lung Cancer Research Foundation, for which she currently serves on the scientific advisory board.

Anne Fraser is a Medical Oncology nurse affiliated with the Auckland District Health Board in New Zealand.

Dr. Roy Herbst joined the Board of Directors of IASLC in 2019 and serves as a liaison to the Communications Committee. At the 17th WCLC in 2016, IASLC honored Dr. Herbst with its Paul A. Bunn, Jr. Scientific Award for his lifetime achievement in thoracic cancer research.

Dr. Herbst is the Ensign Professor of Medicine, Professor of Pharmacology, Chief of Medical Oncology, and Associate Director for Translational Research at the Yale Cancer Center (YCC) and Yale School of Medicine. He has authored more than 400 publications, including peer-reviewed abstracts, book chapters and articles in prominent journals, such as the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Nature.

Dr. Herbst’s primary mission is the enhanced integration of clinical, laboratory and research programs to bring new treatments to patients. He has led the phase I development and successful registration of several new generation targeted and immunogenic agents for the treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer. He is the principal investigator of the NCI Lung Cancer Master Protocol (Lung-MAP) and the NCI-funded Yale Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in Lung Cancer.

After earning a B.S. and M.S. degree from Yale University, Dr. Herbst earned his M.D. at Cornell University Medical College and his Ph.D. at The Rockefeller University. Dr. Herbst also completed a M.S. degree at Harvard University.

Since 2018, Dr. Clarissa Mathias has served as a Latin American member of the IASLC Board of Directors. A medical oncologist, Dr. Mathias is currently conducting several research protocols at Nucleo da Oncologia Bahia (NOB)/Oncocínicas in Brazil, where she has worked for over 19 years. She was appointed President of the Brazilian Society of Clinical Oncology (SBOC) and as the Chair of the International Committee of ASCO.

Currently serving as the Medical Director of the NOB, Dr. Mathias is board certified in internal medicine, hematology and oncology by the American Board of Internal Medicine and in clinical oncology by the Brazilian Society of Cancerology. She has co-authored peer-reviewed papers on a variety of subtypes, including lung, colorectal and breast cancers.

Dr. Mathias earned her medical degree at the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil. She completed her residency in internal medicine at the Medical College of Pennsylvania, where she served as Chief Resident, and completed her hematology and oncology fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Mathias also completed a Ph.D. in internal medicine at the Federal University of Bahia in 2005.

Dr. Yuko Nakayama is Chief of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the National Cancer Center Hospital in Tokyo, Japan.

She graduated from Gunma University School of Medicine, continuing there for residency in radiation oncology before being promoted to Assistant Professor. Dr Nakayama then was appointed Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at Tokai University. She was appointed Chair of Radiation Oncology at Kanagawa Cancer Center (KCC) in 2008, and immediately began preparations for construction of a heavy-ion radiotherapy facility; this facility began operation in 2015. She was in charge of both conventional photon radiotherapy as well as carbon-ion therapy at KCC. She became the Chief of the Department of Radiation Oncology at National Cancer Center Hospital in Sep 2017. Throughout her career, Dr Nakayama has specialized in the treatment of lung cancer with (chemo)radiotherapy.

Dr Nakayama is a new member of the board of directors of IASLC through 2017-2021. She also is a member of the board of directors of the Japan Lung Cancer Society, and has served as chairperson for the sub-committee on radiotherapy guidelines for lung cancer.

Dr. Masayuki Noguchi joined the IASLC Board of Directors in 2017. Dr. Noguchi is a longtime IASLC member and he has served as Chair of the Pathology Committee from 2009 to 2011. In 2009, Dr. Noguchi received the Mary J. Matthews Award for a lifetime achievement in pathology research and diagnosis.

Dr. Masayuki Noguchi has been a professor at Tsukuba University and Chief of the Diagnostic Pathology Laboratory at the University Hospital from 1996.

His major interest is stepwise progression of lung adenocarcinoma, especially the genetic and epigenetic abnormalities of early lesions, including adenocarcinoma in situ and minimally invasive carcinoma. In 1995, he first proposed a classification system for diagnosis of early lesions showing an extremely favorable prognosis, which was subsequently adopted worldwide and is now known as the “Noguchi classification” (Cancer: 1995). Based on the morphological concept of stepwise progression, he reported several key genes such as Stratifin, ECT2, and OCIAD2. Those are associated with carcinogenesis and malignant progression of early stage adenocarcinoma

Dr. Noguchi earned his medical degree and his PhD at Tsukuba University Faculty of Medicine in Tsukuba, Japan. He completed his residency in pathology at National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo.

Professor Nir Peled joined the IASLC Board of Directors in 2019. Professor Peled is the Past Chair of the IASLC Early Detection & Prevention Committee. He is a member of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology editorial board and serves on the association’s Treatment and Mesothelioma Committees. Until recently he was the head of the Assembly of Thoracic Oncology of the European Respiratory Society.

Professor Peled is the Head of the Oncology Division at the Legacy Heritage Oncology Center & Larry Norton Institute at Soroka Medical Center, Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva, Israel. Previously, he served as an associate professor of medicine, pulmonologist and medical oncologist at Tel-Aviv University.

Focusing his research on the wide translational and clinical perspectives of lung cancer, Professor Peled’s investigates personalized targeted therapy, immunotherapy, cancer evolution, biomarker development, and early detection of this disease. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, including guidelines on the early diagnosis of lung cancer, biomarker development, and treatment of advanced disease.

Professor Peled earned his medical degree and his Ph.D. from the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.

A long-standing member of IASLC, Dr. Erik Thunnissen joined the Board of Directors in 2019. Dr. Thunnissen has served on the IASLC Pathology Committee, where he led reproducibility studies for diagnostic pathology, relevant for the World Health Organization (WHO) classification of lung cancer.

Currently, Dr. Thunnissen is a research pathologist in the Department of Pathology at Amsterdam University Medical Center (location VUmc) in the Netherlands. Prior to this role, he served as a consulting pathologist at both VUmc, at Maastricht University Hospital and at Canisius Wilhelmina Gasthuis, Nijmegen. He was responsible for pulmonary molecular External Quality Assessment (EQA) programs initially in the Netherlands, subsequently for European Society of Pathology and now supports UKNEQAS ICC IHC {EQA organization in London, UK}.

Dr. Thunnissen has authored many peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on lung cancer and guided many students through Ph.D. thesis related to lung cancer. He earned his degree in Medicine from the VUmc, Amsterdam (1981), in Pathology at the Universiteit van Amsterdam (1986)and a PhD. in Medicine at VUmc, Amsterdam (1987).

Dr. Paul Van Schil joined the IASLC Board of Directors in 2017 and has served as Chair of its Staging and Prognostic Factors Committee since 2017.

Dr. Van Schil is a professor of thoracic and vascular surgery at the Faculty of Medicine, member of the Antwerp Surgical Training and Research Center (ASTARC) and consultant at the Department of Thoracic and Vascular Surgery of the Antwerp University Hospital.
His research focuses on thoracic and vascular surgery with an emphasis on lung cancer staging and therapy, lung metastases and mesothelioma. Dr. Van Schil has authored or co-authored nearly 250 articles and 44 book chapters. Dr. Van Schil graduated from medical school in 1982 at the Antwerp University in Belgium. After completing his training in general surgery, he became a fellow in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Antonius Hospital, Nieuwegein, the Netherlands.

Dr. James Chih-Hsin Yang joined the IASLC Board of Directors in 2017 and currently serves Superintendent at National Taiwan University Cancer Center. Dr. Yang also is a Distinguished Professor and Director at the Graduate Institute of Oncology at the National Taiwan University Cancer Center.

His research focuses on lung cancer treatment and the mechanism of chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy resistance. Dr. Yang is a leader in lung cancer clinical studies, especially in the area of new drug development. Publishing more than 250 peer-reviewed papers, Dr. Yang’s work has appeared in scientific journals such as New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet Oncology and Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Dr. Yang received his medical degree from National Taiwan University (NTU) and completed his Ph.D. degree at NTU’s Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine. He completed his internal medicine residency at the NTU Hospital and undertook a medical oncology fellowship at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

Professor Caicun Zhou joined the IASLC Board of Directors in 2019, serving on the association’s Tobacco Control and Cessation Committee and Education Committee from 2010-2014.

With more than 20 years of experience in clinical oncology, Professor Zhou has focused his research on early detection, molecular targeted therapy, anti-angiogenesis therapy and immunotherapy in lung cancer. Since 1998, he has served as Chief Physician and Director of the Department of Medical Oncology at Tongji University in Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital. Prior to his work at Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, he served as Associate Director at Affiliated Hospital of Bengbu Medical College.

Professor Zhou has published over 200 articles in international peer reviewed journals, including the Lancet Oncology, Lancet Respiratory Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology and Annals of Oncology, and he has written three books on lung cancer. In 2002, he worked as a visiting scientist at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. He studied medicine at NanTong Medical College, earned his Ph.D. at China Medical University and served as a fellow at Tokyo National Chest Hospital.