June 3, 2026, Alexandria, VA
The American Thyroid Association® (ATA®) annually recognizes clinicians, academicians, and early career researchers for their distinguished contributions to thyroidology. Recipients are recognized for their professional achievements as well as their dedication and service to the ATA. The award winners are named below and will be honored during the ATA’s 2026 Annual Meeting to be held November 3-7, 2026, in Philadelphia, PA.
“We are honored to recognize these exceptional awardees for their remarkable achievements and enduring contributions to thyroid research, clinical care, and service to the ATA,” said Angela Leung, MD, Chair of the Awards Committee.
Stephanie Lee, MD, PhD – Distinguished Service Award
The Distinguished Service Award honors a member who has made important and continuing contributions to the American Thyroid Association (ATA). Dr. Lee has dedicated her career to teaching and clinical care of thyroid disease. She currently is Professor of Medicine and Evans Clinician at the Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine and the Boston Medical Center and Director of the Multidisciplinary Thyroid Health Center and the Thyroid Nodule and Cancer Research Center. A member of the ATA since 1990, Dr. Lee has served on seven of its committees and only missed two annual meetings since joining! Dr. Lee served on the first two Task Forces to focus on Thyroid Nodules and Cancer between 2005-2010 and co-authored the 2006 and 2009 ATA Guidelines for Thyroid Nodules and Cancer. Dr. Lee held several leadership roles throughout the ATA, including as a member of the ATA Board of Directors 2002-2005 and as past President of the Women in Thyroidology 2015-2016 and was honored to be named Woman of the Year in Thyroidology in 2015. Dr. Lee has made the ATA a professional home and comments that she “greatly values the professionalism, collegiality, life-long friendships and intellectual stimulation provided by ATA.”
Lisa A. Orloff, MD, FACS, FACE – Lewis E. Braverman Distinguished Lectureship Award
The Lewis E. Braverman Distinguished Lectureship Award recognizes an individual who demonstrates excellence and passion for mentoring fellows, students and junior faculty, has a long history of productive thyroid research, and is devoted to the ATA. As Director of the Thyroid Tumor Program at Stanford Cancer Center and Professor at Stanford School of Medicine, Dr. Orloff focuses her clinical practice on ultrasound-guided management of thyroid and parathyroid tumors and surgery for recurrent, metastatic, and invasive thyroid cancer. She lectures nationally and internationally and has contributed to ATA educational programming since 2010. A dedicated advocate for the ATA, she describes herself as “a perennial advocate for membership in the ATA to trainees and colleagues,” noting that she relies on ATA materials in her day-to-day teaching and mentoring. Dr. Orloff served as Associate Editor for Clinical Thyroidology from 2019 to 2021 and has served as co-author and co-chair on several ATA publications and committees, including the current Thyroid Nodules Guidelines Task Force.
Megan R. Haymart, MD – Valerie Anne Galton Distinguished Lectureship Award
The Valerie Anne Galton Distinguished Lectureship Award recognizes an individual who has been instrumental in collaborative research that has significantly contributed to the advancement of clinical knowledge of thyroid conditions. Dr. Haymart holds the Nancy Wigginton Endocrinology Research Professorship and is Director of Thyroid Cancer Research at the University of Michigan. She is a health services researcher specializing in thyroid disease whose primary academic mission is to improve the clinical care of patients with thyroid conditions through high-quality, collaborative, multidisciplinary research spanning the thyroid cancer continuum, from initial diagnosis to survivorship. Dr. Haymart partners with colleagues across a broad range of clinical and methodological disciplines and leading to high-impact publications in premier journals such as JAMA, NEJM, and BMJ, which have advanced the field’s understanding of thyroid cancer overdiagnosis, overtreatment, and shared decision making.
Dr. Haymart has a sustained history of NIH-funded research focused on optimizing thyroid care delivery. She currently serves as principal investigator on two R01 equivalents and an NCI R34, and as co-investigator on an NIA R01 and her institution’s CTSA award. With over $8 million in NIH funding as principal investigator, her research efforts demonstrate her commitment to rigorous, collaborative science.
Dr. Haymart was awarded ATA’s prestigious Van Meter Lectureship in 2017 and has co-authored several of its statements and publications.
Maria E. Cabanillas, MD – Sidney H. Ingbar Distinguished Lectureship Award
The Sidney H. Ingbar Distinguished Lectureship Award recognizes outstanding academic achievements in thyroidology, in keeping with the innovation and vision that epitomized Dr. Ingbar’s brilliant investigative career. Dr. Maria E. Cabanillas holds a tenured professorship in the Department of Endocrine Neoplasia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where her clinical focus centers on patients early stage through advanced thyroid cancers, with particular emphasis on aggressive and rare subtypes. She established and directs a multidisciplinary program that treats the highest volume of anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) patients in the country. Under her leadership, she and her team have achieved close to a threefold increase in overall survival among ATC patients and contributed to the development of a potentially curative treatment approach for those with BRAF V600E–mutated disease. Regarded internationally as a leader in advanced thyroid malignancies, Dr. Cabanillas is also a dedicated clinical investigator who places significant emphasis on mentoring junior faculty and contributing to the development of the next generation of endocrinologists.
Anthony Hollenberg, MD – John B. Stanbury Thyroid Pathophysiology Medal
The John B. Stanbury Thyroid Pathophysiology Medal recognizes outstanding research contributions, either conceptual or technical, to the understanding of thyroid physiology or the pathophysiology of thyroid disease, as evidenced by having a major impact on research or clinical practice related to thyroid diseases.
Dr. Hollenberg is widely recognized for his groundbreaking research on thyroid disorders, focusing on the physiological and molecular mechanisms by which thyroid hormones regulate metabolism and body weight, as well as thyroid gland development. His research career in thyroid hormone action began in1993, and he received his first NIH grant in 1995. Since then, his lab has made contributions in two critical areas of thyroid hormone action: negative regulation by thyroid hormone using the TRH neuron as a model system, and the role of coregulators in thyroid receptor function. The lab has also made significant contributions to the understanding of thyroid gland development, using iPSCs and ESCs to model thyroid follicular cell development. These projects continue to be supported by the NIH, which has allowed several new investigators to continue the critical work into the future.
Maria Papaleontiou, MD – Women in Thyroidology Woman of the Year
The Women in Thyroidology Woman of the Year Award recognizes an ATA member who is dedicated to the field and the advancement of women in thyroidology.
Maria Papaleontiou, MD, is an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine with tenure with an appointment in the Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Diabetes, and a Research Associate Professor at the Institute of Gerontology, at the University of Michigan. She completed her endocrinology fellowship at the University of Michigan, where she subsequently joined the faculty in 2013. She is a recipient of Fulbright and Howard Hughes Medical Institute scholarships. Her clinical practice focuses on thyroid diseases and thyroid cancer, as well as geriatric endocrinology.
About the American Thyroid Association®
The American Thyroid Association (ATA) is dedicated to transforming thyroid care through clinical excellence, education, scientific discovery and advocacy in a collaborative and diverse community. ATA® is an international professional medical society with over 1,700 members from 70 countries around the world. The ATA® promotes thyroid awareness and information through Clinical Thyroidology® for the Public, a resource that summarizes research for patients and families, and extensive, authoritative resources on thyroid disease and thyroid cancer in both English and Spanish. The ATA® website www.thyroid.org serves as a bonafide clinical resource for patients and the public who look for reliable thyroid-related information.
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