Elizabeth N. Pearce, MD, MSc President, American Thyroid Association

President's Update
June 2019

Greetings!

The ATA leadership and many members met in Phoenix recently for a highly productive strategic planning meeting. Details about the plans developed there will be forthcoming in next month's Signal. Also in June the ATA hosted a satellite symposium, just before the Latin American Thyroid Society (LATS) meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, titled American Thyroid Association (ATA) Guidelines: From Development to Deployment.

Elections for the ATA's board of directors and president-elect will be underway later this summer (and we trust will be far more collegial than the national political scene). For the last several years, in order to ensure that the board is reflective of the composition of the society, board members are elected to seats based on their type of practice or professional activity. You can find a listing (and photos) of the current Board of Directors on the ATA website.

Nominations have been submitted over the past year to the ATA's Nominating Committee, chaired by Susan Sherman. The slate of candidates put together by that committee has been approved by the board. Voting will take place electronically in August; please watch for the ballot in your email. A detailed biography for each candidate will be included in the formal ballot. The 2019 candidates are:

Candidates for President-elect

Erik K. Alexander, MD is the Chief of the Thyroid Section, Brigham & Women's Hospital, and Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Alexander was a member of the task force for the 2015 ATA Clinical Guidelines for adult patients with thyroid nodules and cancer, and served as Co-Chair of the 2017 ATA Clinical Guidelines for the care of patients with thyroid diseases during pregnancy. He Co-Chaired the 2008 ATA Annual Meeting Program in Chicago, IL.  Dr. Alexander was a member of the ATA Board of Directors from 2012-2016.  He currently chairs the ATA Finance & Audit Committee. 

Victor Bernet, MD is the Chair of the Division of Endocrinology at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida and is an Associate Professor in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. Dr. Bernet has served on the ATA Public Health Committee, the Internet Committee, and the fellow recruitment task force, where he participated in the development of the ATA Trainee web page. Dr. Bernet served on the ATA Board of Directors from 2010-2019. He assumed the position of Secretary/ Chief Operating Officer of the American Thyroid Association in October 2015.

Candidates for Directors

Pediatric Endocrinologists (Pesce and Rivkees)

Liuska Pesce, MD is a Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Iowa. She has been an ATA member since 2011. She has served on the ATA's Clinical Affairs Committee for the last six years. Dr. Pesce has also been a member of the Pediatric Task Force and a member of the editorial board of Clinical Thyroidology for the Public.

Scott Rivkees, MD is Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Florida and Physician-in-Chief of Shands Children’s Hospital.  He is the 2018 recipient of the ATA's Paul Starr award. He has served on the ATA pediatric task force, the public health committee and the ATA guideline development task forces including that for the 2016 Guidelines for Diagnosis and Management of Hyperthyroidism. He is a member of the Thyroid editorial board.

Oncologic Endocrinologists (Bible and Busaidy)

Keith C. Bible, MD, PhD is a Professor of Oncology at the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, Rochester, MN.  He was a member of the Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer and the Thyroid Nodules and Differentiated Thyroid Cancer task forces, and currently co-chairs the Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer Guidelines revision.  He is an Associate Editor of Thyroid, and a former member of the Ethics Advisory Committee.   

Naifa L. Busaidy, MD, is a Tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Endocrine Neoplasia & Hormonal Disorders at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston.  In 2011, she was awarded an ATA/ThyCa research grant.  An ATA member since 2009, she has served on the Program Committee, Research Committee, and the Awards Committee.

Lab Researchers (Di Cristofano and Williams)

Antonio Di Cristofano, PhD is a Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Developmental & Molecular Biology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. A member of the ATA since 2008, Dr. Di Cristofano was the recipient of the 2012 Van Meter Award.  He currently co-chairs the annual ATA Program Committee. He has previously chaired the Research committee and served on the Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer Guidelines task force. 

Graham R. Williams, MB, PhD is a Professor of Endocrinology at Imperial College, London where he heads the Molecular Endocrinology Laboratory.  He joined the ATA as a fellow in 1989.  He was the recipient of ATA Young Investigator Awards in 2002 and 2003 and the Sidney H. Ingbar Distinguished Lectureship Award in 2014.  He has served on the Basic Research Guidelines task force, the 15th ITC Program Organizing Committee, and is currently on the Thyroid editorial board.

As a reminder, in 2019 we hope to achieve full funding of the Ridgway Legacy endowment, which supports the annual trainee conference at the annual meeting. In addition, fundraising for the new Samuel Refetoff Fund, which is intended to support trainees and young investigators, to support ATA research awards, and to support the resistance to thyroid hormone symposium is now underway. You can make your own donation at https://www.thyroid.org/donate/.

President, American Thyroid Association