Originally from South Africa, Dr. Catharine Young holds a doctorate degree in Biomedical Sciences and completed her Postdoctoral training in Biomedical Engineering. Currently she serves at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to advance the Cancer Moonshot - The President and First Lady’s mission to decrease the number of cancer deaths by 50% over the next 25 years. Besides Catharine’s federal government experience, Catharine’s career has spanned a variety of sectors including academia, non-profit, biotech, and foreign government, all with a focus on advancing science and innovation. Awards include being selected as a TED Fellow, a New Voices Fellow of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, a Presidential Leadership Scholar, and Social Enablers top 100 most inspiring social entrepreneurs. Catharine is an advocate for women in STEM and has been a contributor to major social and media networks including TED-Ed, the Guardian and the UK Science and Innovation Network.

Annabelle Gurwitch is a New York Times Bestselling author, actress and activist whose most recent collection of essays You're Leaving When? Adventures in Downward Mobility is a New York Times Favorite Book for Healthy Living, a Good Morning America Must Read and a finalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor Writing 2022.

Annabelle has written for The New Yorker, New York Times, Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and Hadassah. Her five books include The New York Times bestseller and Thurber Prize finalist I See You Made an Effort. She was the long-time cohost of Dinner & a Movie on TBS and a commentator on NPR. She's been featured in Time Magazine’s annual “10 Ideas That are Changing the World,” GMA, Real Time with Bill Maher, CBS Early Morning, Oprah, and PBS Newshour.

Annabelle has been chronicling living with stage iv lung cancer and writing about inequities in healthcare in The New York Times and Washington Post since her stage iv lung cancer out-of-the-blue diagnosis during covid. She's spoken as a patient advocate at scientific conferences around the globe including: Vienna, Rome, and most recently- the Multi-Omics conference in Brisbane. Annabelle has just been awarded an IASLC 2023 Patient Advocate Educational Award and will be attending the World Lung Cancer Conference in Singapore this coming September. She's particularly excited to participate in the Florida Lung Health Symposium because she grew up in Florida and she wants to see her fellow Floridians get as early a diagnosis as possible.

Phillip Levy, MD, MPH is the Edward S Thomas endowed Professor of Emergency Medicine at Wayne State University where he currently serves as Associate Vice President for Translational Sciences. Dr. Levy is a Fellow of multiple professional societies including the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American Heart Association, and the American College of Cardiology. Dr. Levy is a leading health equity researcher with a focus on cardiovascular disease risk reduction who has overseen more than 110 funded studies from various entities since his arrival at Wayne State in 2002 including current grant support from the NIH, CDC, and American Heart Association.

Since March 2020, Dr. Levy has been leading Wayne State and Wayne Health’s mobile health unit program which has been a critical component of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the fall of 2021, Dr. Levy received grant support from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and the American Heart Association Health Equity Research Network totaling nearly $21 million, which enabled expansion of this program to include community-based hypertension screening and management.

Dr. Ninan is a highly experienced general thoracic surgeon, and specializes in surgery of the lungs, esophagus and other chest organs, including upper abdominal surgery of the esophagus. He is an expert on the surgical treatment of the lung cancer, and has been performing robotic minimally invasive lung surgery since 2008. In 2008, he was appointed as Professor and Chief of Surgical Oncology at the University of Tennessee. Dr Ninan joined HCA Florida team of surgeons in 2019, bringing an impressive list of accomplishments including being named a U.S. News & World Report top doctor for several years. He concentrates his practice at HCA Florida Trinity Hospital and serves patients thorought Hernando, Citrus, Pasco and Pinellas Counties. He also serves as Director of Thoracic Surgery for HCA West Fl Division.