Christie Rampersad, MD, is a Transplant Nephrologist and current MSc candidate in Clinical Epidemiology at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She is a current member of the TTS Early Career Members Committee and the Women in Transplantation committee at the University of Toronto. She is supported by a Kidney Research Scientist Core Education and National Training Program (KRESCENT) post-doctoral fellow salary award co-funded by the Kidney Foundation of Canada, the Canadian Society of Nephrology, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). She is also the recipient of the inaugural Dr. Edward Cole kidney transplant fellowship at the University of Toronto, and the Canadian Society of Transplantation Research Training award 2023. Her research interests include exploring opportunities to optimize utilization and allocation of deceased donor kidneys for transplantation, with a view to increasing opportunities for transplantation for recipient candidates.

Peter Reese, MD, PhD is Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on: a) developing effective strategies to increase access to solid organ transplantation, b) improving the process of selecting and caring for living kidney donors, c) determining outcomes of health policies on vulnerable populations with renal disease, including the elderly, d) testing strategies to improve important health behaviors such as medication adherence, and e) transplant ethics. He is a past chair of the Ethics Committee for the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), which oversees organ allocation and transplant regulation in the US. He has been honored by selection as a Greenwall Scholar and as a recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. His current work includes leading pioneering trials to transplant organs from deceased donors with hepatitis C virus and, more recently, working to safely integrate the use of genetically-modified porcine organs into the care of patients with end-stage organ disease. He is very invested in training the next generation of investigators focused on advancing care for patients with advanced kidney disease or in need of transplantation.

Dr. Locke completed her undergraduate degree in biology and chemistry at Duke University and her medical degree at East Carolina University prior to matriculating to Johns Hopkins Hospital where she received training in general surgery and multi-visceral abdominal transplantation. Dr. Locke completed her Master of Public Health degree with an emphasis in biostatistics and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She joined the surgical faculty at UAB upon completion of her training at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Locke is a well-funded investigator, and currently holds an NIH K23 Career Development Award and a Clinical Science Faculty Development Grant through the American Society of Transplantation. She has authored 52 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 11 book chapters. Dr. Locke is frequently invited to present her research as a visiting professor at many prestigious academic centers around the US and at international transplant meetings, including the World Transplant Congress, the British Transplantation Society, the American Transplant Congress, and the National Kidney Foundation. In addition, Dr. Locke is an Associate Editor for Transplantation and is a regular peer reviewer for several journals, including the American Journal of Transplantation and the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology to name a few. She is an invited member of the ASTS Providing Better Access to Organs Task Force and Diversity Affairs Committee, the AST Kidney-Pancreas Committee, The Transplantation Society Young Member Committee, and the United Network for Organ Sharing Pediatric Transplant Committee. Dr. Locke is the recipient of numerous honors and has most recently received the American Transplant Congress Young Investigator Award, the Birmingham Business Journal’s Top 40 under 40 Award, and was named one of AL.com’s 2015 Women Who Shape the State.

Dr. Locke is an abdominal transplant surgeon who specializes in innovative strategies for the transplantation of incompatible organs, disparities in access to and outcomes after solid organ transplantation, and transplantation of HIV-infected end-stage patients. Her research interests include complex statistical analysis and modeling of transplant outcomes and behavioral research focused on health disparities.

Dr. Maggie Ma graduated from the Medical School, the University of Hong Kong and completed her specialist training in nephrology in 2011. In 2013, she received further training in the field of kidney transplantation at Westmead Hospital, Sydney, Australia. Dr Ma is now the Associate Consultant in Department of Medicine, Queen Mary Hospital and Honorary Clinical Assistant Professor of the University of Hong Kong. She is also the President of Hong Kong Society of Transplantation and Vice-President / President Elect of Asian Society of Transplantation.

John J. Fung, M.D., Ph.D. is the Director of the UChicago Medicine Transplant Institute. Prior to that, he served as Director of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Transplantation and the Chairman of the Digestive Disease Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, as well as the former Chief of the Division of Transplant Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. With over 30 years of involvement in kidney, liver, pancreas, islet, and intestinal transplantation, he is also an accomplished immunologist. Dr. Fung currently serves as TTS Vice President.

Dr. Kenji Okumura MD, graduated from Kyushu University, Japan, completed a surgical residency at Tokyo Bay Medical Center in Japan, completed fellowship in Liver / Kidney Transplant Surgery Program at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Texas, USA, currently working as a surgical resident at Westchester Medical Center / New York Medical College, NY, USA. His research interests are clinical outcome research in liver / kidney and multi-organ transplantation. He is proud to be a member of the TTS and the Early Career Members' Committee.

Professor Steve Chadban is Stream Director of Renal Medicine and Urology and Senior Staff Nephrologist/transplant physician at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, and Professor of Medicine and Leader of the Kidney Node, Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney. Chadban is a clinician-scientist and leads teams in basic immunology, clinical trials and epidemiology. He has published over 300 papers in journals including NEJM, JAMA, Lancet and JCI, with 19,495 cites and H-index 71. Chadban is Past-President of the Transplantation Society of Australia and New Zealand and ex-Councilor of The Transplantation Society. Chadban has held key organizational roles in numerous national and international meetings, including Social Director for the highly successful TTS 2008 in Sydney. His roles in hospital and societal leadership and management, mentorship, research and Government give him the experience, skills and contacts required to produce an amazing TTS 2026 in Sydney.

Dr. John Gill completed his clinical training in Canada and research training at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston before joining the Division of Nephrology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada as a clinician scientist in 2002 where he is currently Professor of Medicine with tenure.

Dr. Gill is currently the president of the American Society of Transplantation. He is a past councillor of the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group.

Dr. Gill is a clinical and health policy researcher who has continuously maintained peer-reviewed funding throughout his academic career, he has led the development of a Canadian clinical transplant research network, authored over 120 peer-reviewed publications, and trained 20 post-doctoral research fellows./

Dr. Gill has had a lead role in advancing national initiatives for transplant patients in Canada including development of Canada’s kidney paired donation program. He has served as President of the Canadian Society of Nephrology, and the Canadian Organ Replacement Register.

Dr. Vikas S. Sridhar MD, FRCPC completed his residency training in Internal Medicine at McGill University followed by a residency in adult nephrology and a fellowship in kidney and pancreas transplantation at the University of Toronto. He is currently s a PhD candidate at the Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto with a focus on cardio-renal protection in transplantation. He is supported by the Eliot Phillipson Clinician Scientist Training Program, a Banting and Best Diabetes Centre Postdoctoral fellowship, and a CIHR Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships Doctoral Research Award.

Professor of Medicine Associate, Chief for Research, Division of Nephrology, Vice Chair of Research Mentoring and Academic Development, Department of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, USA; Chair, Women in Transplantation Initiative of TTS

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Dr. Roslyn Bernstein Mannon is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Vice-Chair for Academic Development and Research Mentoring and Associate Chief of Nephrology for Research, and Chair of the Women in Transplantation Initiative of The Transplantation Society. Dr. Mannon is a Fellow of the American Society of Nephrology and American Society of Transplantation. She received her MD from Duke University, completing Internal Medicine internship, residency and Nephrology fellowship and Chief Resident at Duke. Her career includes serving as Medical Director for the Kidney/pancreas NIDDK intramural transplant program and at the Birmingham VA Medical Center and Section Chief of Transplant Nephrology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Mannon is a past-president of the AST and is a Deputy Editor of the American Journal of Transplantation. Dr. Mannon’s laboratory research focuses on mechanisms of chronic graft injury using in vitro and using rodent models of drug toxicity and kidney transplantation and is funded by the Veterans Administration Merit Award. Dr. Mannon is site PI for the Clinical Trials in Organ Transplantation (CTOT), a member of the CTOT Steering Committee and Chair of the Ancillary Studies Committee for APOL1 Long-term Kidney Transplantation Outcomes Research Network (APOLLO). She also serves as a member of the steering committee for the Transplant Therapeutics Consortium, a private/public partnership with cPATH and FDA dedicated to accelerating new transplant therapies into practice. She has published nearly 200 peer-reviewed publications on the mechanisms of chronic allograft failure following transplantation and post-transplant complications and therapeutics.

Dr. Sawinski is Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a transplant nephrologist, epidemiologist and clinical researcher. Her research interests include the care of patients with chronic viral infections, living donors and optimizing organ allocation. She is proud to be a member of the TTS and the Early Career Members' Committee.

Professor Maarten Naesens

• Full Professor of Medicine, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation at KU Leuven University
• Clinical Director of Nephrology and Renal Transplantation Unit of the University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium
• Clinician-scientist with an interest in harnessing the potential of big data and bioinformatic approaches to improve outcomes in transplantation.

Prof. Dr. Maarten Naesens is Clinical Director of the Nephrology and Renal Transplantation unit of the University Hospitals Leuven. He is co-directing the kidney transplant program, with special focus on renal allograft histology, antibody-mediated rejection, HLA sensitization, living donation and ABO-incompatible transplantation. He directs the protocol biopsy program of the University Hospitals Leuven and the “Biobank Renal Transplantation” at this same institution. He is appointed Full Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation at the KU Leuven, University of Leuven.
In his translational research performed at this institution, he integrates clinical, histological, genetic and gene expression data, to get an integrated view on the determinants of rejection, inflammation, and histological damage progression of renal allografts and late graft loss. Prof. Maarten Naesens was principal investigator of the FP7 project “Biomargin” of the European Commission, focusing on biomarker research for kidney transplantation by using omics strategies and systems medicine, and of several government-funded research projects in this domain. He has published more than 170 peer-reviewed manuscripts in international journals, amongst others in New Engl J Med, J Exp Med, Sci Transl Med, Nature Comm, J Am Soc Nephrol, Transplantation, Am J Transplant and Kidney Int and Transplant International.
He has established collaborative projects and networks with multiple European and American research centers. He has received investigator awards from the European Society of Organ Transplantation, from the American Transplant Society and from The Transplantation Society. He is Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Transplant International, the official journal of the European Society of Organ Transplantation.

Dr Jennifer Li

• Nephrologist currently undertaking PhD research at the Westmead Institute for Medical Research, University of Sydney
• Key interest areas are transplant immunology, acute kidney injury and precision medicine.
• Currently involved as an editorial fellow with Transplantation and part of the early career researcher committees with TTS and TSANZ
• https://www.sydney.edu.au/medicine-health/about/our-people/academic-staff/jennifer-li1.html

Camille Nelson Kotton MD, FIDSA, FAST is the clinical director of the Transplant Infectious Disease and Immunocompromised Host Program at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. She was chair of The Infectious Disease Community of Practice of The American Society of Transplantation (2012-2018). From 2007-2013, she was the president of The Transplant Infectious Disease Section of The Transplantation Society. Highlights of her time as president include the development of international guidelines on CMV management after solid organ transplant, published in Transplantation (2010, 2013, 2018). She is the first transplant infectious disease specialist to be a councilor of The Transplantation Society (2020). Her clinical interests include cytomegalovirus, donor-derived infections, zoonoses, and travel and tropical medicine in the transplant setting. She is a new member of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and is involved in national decisions regarding COVID-19 vaccines. Dr. Kotton is a past member of the Disease Transmission Advisory Committee of The United Network for Organ Sharing, and has expertise in donor derived infections.

Dr. Sawinski is Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a transplant nephrologist, epidemiologist and clinical researcher. Her research interests include the care of patients with chronic viral infections, living donors and optimizing organ allocation. She is proud to be a member of the TTS and the Early Career Members' Committee.

Research Fellow & General Surgery Resident, Department of Surgery
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

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Dr. Boyarsky, who earned his MD from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, is a general surgery resident at Johns Hopkins. During his academic development time, he earned his PhD in Clinical Investigation at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public. One of his major accomplishments was writing the HOPE Act, which paved the way for HIV-to-HIV positive transplantation in the United States.

Jacqueline Mary Garonzik Wang, M.D., Ph.D. is the Program Director, Multi-Organ Transplant Fellowship and Associate Professor of Surgery at Johns Hopkins. Her expertise is General Surgery, Hepatobiliary Surgery, Kidney Transplant, Liver Transplant and Pancreas Transplant. Her research interests are exploring and developing methods to increase living donation; utilizing large healthcare datasets to improve access to transplantation and post-transplant outcomes; increasing deceased donor transplant rates by safely expanding organ acceptance criteria.