Audit Committee

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). 

Joining the Board of Directors in 2015, Dr. Heather Wakelee is a longtime IASLC member and is now the past president. She has served as Chair of the Communications Committee and has worked for more than a decade on various program committees for the World Conference on Lung Cancer.

Dr. Wakelee is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Oncology at Stanford University and is the faculty director of the Stanford Cancer Clinical Trials Office. She has authored or co-authored over 200 articles on lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies, including thymic malignancies, and is involved in dozens of clinical trials related to lung cancer therapy and diagnostics.

Her research focuses on specific lung cancer subtypes defined by mutations. She is also involved in trials of adjuvant therapy, immunotherapy and anti-angiogenesis agents in addition to collaborations with colleagues focused on biomarkers and population science research.

A graduate of Princeton University and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Dr. Wakelee completed her post-graduate training at Stanford University.

Dr. Kelly is the CEO of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), the only global network dedicated to the study and eradication of lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies. She is an internationally recognized lung cancer expert dedicated to providing enhanced cancer care through cutting-edge clinical trials. Her research spans the spectrum of this disease from prevention to treatment. Dr. Kelly is widely published, and she frequently lectures on lung cancer topics, nationally and internationally. Dr. Kelly is a long-standing active member of IASLC, ASCO, and SWOG. She served as the SWOG Lung Committee Chair from 2016 until 2022.

Dr. Kelly earned her medical degree from the University of Kansas School of Medicine. She completed her internal medicine residency and oncology fellowship at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, Colorado. Dr. Kelly was appointed faculty at the University of Colorado where she spent many years building her academic career in thoracic oncology prior to accepting a faculty appointment at the University of California, Davis where she held the Jennifer Rene Harmon Tegley and Elizabeth Erica Harmon Endowed Chair in Clinical Cancer Research and was the Associate Director for Clinical Research for their NCI designated comprehensive cancer center.

Dr. Tsao is a Consultant Pathologist, Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. He is Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, and Professor of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on understanding the genomic and molecular abnormalities in lung cancers to improve the accuracy of diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Tsao has made seminal contributions to the molecular characterization of lung cancer. His laboratory was one of the first to define molecular markers for patient selection towards treatment with targeted anti-cancer drugs, and defined gene signatures for outcome prediction of non-small-cell lung cancer patients. More recently, His laboratory has pioneered the establishment and characterization of patient-derived tumor models for lung cancer.  Dr. Tsao is Chair of the Correlative Science and Tumor Biology Committee of the Canadian Cancer Clinical Trials Group (CCTG), member and past Chair of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) Pathology Committee, the IASLC Staging & Prognostic Factor Committee, and a Standing Member of the Editorial Board for the WHO Books on Classification of Tumours 5th edition. He was an Associate Editor for the Journal of Thoracic Oncology and Editorial Board member of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Dr. Tsao received the 2011 Canadian Cancer Society O. Harold Warwick Award, the 2016 IASLC Mary Matthew Pathology Award, and CCTG 2017 Dr. Joseph Pater Founder's Award for Excellence in Clinical Trials Research. In 2020, Dr. Tsao was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. 

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. 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.