Celine Gounder was appointed to the Biden-Harris Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board in November 2020. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine. Dr. Gounder is also the CEO/President/Founder of Just Human Productions, a non-profit multimedia organization. She hosts and produces American Diagnosis, a podcast on health and social justice, and Epidemic, a podcast about the COVID pandemic. She has served as a CNN Medical Analyst and frequent expert guest on news programs around the world. She is best known for her coverage of the Ebola, Zika, COVID-19, opioid overdose, and gun violence epidemics. Dr. Gounder is a graduate of The University of Washington (MD), Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Sc.M, Epidemiology), and Princeton University (BA, molecular biology). She was elected a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America in 2016 and featured in the IDSA’s 2017 Annual Report. In 2017, People Magazine named her one of 25 Women Changing the World.

Enrico Benedetti is a transplant surgeon at University of Illinois Health and holds the Warren G. Cole Chair in Surgery. Dr. Benedetti is a prominent leader in organ transplantation and in the use of robotic-assisted techniques in transplantation. He has to his credit many successful surgical firsts, including the first robotic donor nephrectomy for a living-donor kidney transplant, the first combined living-donor liver and bowel transplant from an adult to an infant, the first robotic combined kidney and pancreas procurement for a living-donor transplant, and the largest series of living-donor intestinal transplants in the world.

Talia Baker is the director of the Living Donor Liver Transplant Program and the Surgical Director of Transplant Oncology at UChicago Medicine. She is a nationally-recognized leader in living donor liver transplantation and the treatment of liver diseases, including hepatobiliary malignancies. Dr. Baker is an active researcher. Her scholarly work focuses on liver transplant topics, such as downstaging complex hepatobiliary tumors to resectability and the ethical implications of using social media for organ donation opportunities. Dr. Baker was an invited participant at the 2016 White House summit to reduce the organ waiting list and facilitate research breakthroughs.

Dr. Anthony Atala, Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, is a practicing surgeon and a regenerative medicine researcher. His work focuses on growing human tissues and organs using cells and 3D Printing. His work has been listed twice as Time Magazine’s top 5 medical breakthroughs of the year. He was named by Scientific American as one of the world’s most influential people in biotechnology and by Nature Biotechnology as one of the top translational researchers in the world. Dr. Atala has received numerous awards for his work, including the US Congress- funded Columbus Foundation Award, bestowed on a living American who is working on discoveries that will significantly affect society, the Edison Science Award, the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award, and the R&D Innovator of the Year Award. More than 14 applications of his laboratory technologies have been used clinically. He is the editor of 20 books, has published over 600 journal articles, and has applied/received more than 250 national and international patents.

Alexandra J. Lansky is Professor of Medicine in the section of Cardiology at the Yale School of Medicine and a practicing cardiologist at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Dr. Lansky joined Yale in 2010 as Director of the Yale Heart and Vascular Clinical Research Program and the Cardiovascular Research Center (YCRC), which specializes in the conduct of national and international cardiovascular clinical trials with specific expertise in the evaluation of interventional devices. She most recently received a dual appointment as Chair of Cardiovascular Research at Queen Mary University in London as part of the Yale and London based Barts Heart Center transatlantic research collaboration. Previously, she taught at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She has dedicated her career to leading clinical and angiographic evaluations of more than 500 clinical trials in a broad range of ischemic cardiovascular therapeutic areas, including pharmacologic and interventional device trials. She has served as the principal investigator on numerous national and international imaging studies, device, DES and neuroprotection trials. Dr. Lansky chaired the American Heart Association Statement on Interventions in Women and the Academic Research Consortium defining Neurologic Endpoints in clinical cardiovascular trials.

Jason Lazar is a Professor of Medicine, the Director of Non-Invasive Cardiology, and the Director of the Cardiovascular Medicine Fellowship Training Program at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center University Hospital. He is a practicing cardiologist with over twenty years of experience and holds several patents on cardio-related medical devices. Lazar received his medical degree from State University of New York Upstate Medical University and has a Masters in Public Health from Columbia University. He is a frequent visitor to EXPLO medical programs.

Robert Truog is the Frances Glessner Lee Professor of Medical Ethics, Anaesthesiology & Pediatrics and the Director of the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School. He received his medical degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and is board certified in the practices of pediatrics, anesthesiology, and pediatric critical care medicine. Dr. Truog practices pediatric intensive care medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he has served for more than 30 years, including a decade as chief of the Division of Critical Care Medicine. As chair of Harvard University’s Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight Committee (ESCRO), he is engaged in the interesting and difficult challenges of defining the ethical parameters of stem cell research and regenerative biology. Dr. Truog has published more than 300 articles in bioethics and related disciplines. He lectures widely nationally and internationally, and is an active member of numerous committees and advisory boards.

Christian Arbelaez is the Vice Chair of Academic Affairs at Brown Emergency Medicine at Rhode Island, Hasbro Children’s, The Miriam & Newport Hospitals and an Associate Professor at The Alpert Medical School, Brown University. He is an internationally renowned innovative leader and expert in international emergency care delivery systems and public health and policy. Dr. Arbelaez has a proven track record of building constructive, collaborative academic relationships with other academic departments, programs at Harvard medical school, and national and international academic organizations. As the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) Lead Ambassador for Colombia, he led the development of emergency medicine in Colombia and has worked to improve the international emergency care delivery and public health systems in more than 10 countries, focusing on Latin America. He has a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion in academic medicine. Dr. Arbelaez received his medical degree from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. He has a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in Healthcare Management from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.