Executive Committee

Professor Caicun Zhou joined the IASLC Board of Directors in 2019 and is the current President-elect. He serves 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.

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. 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. He is now the current President of the IASLC. 

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.