Dianna M. Milewicz, M.D. Ph.D., is the President George H.W. Bush Chair of Cardiovascular Medicine, Director of the Division of Medical Genetics and the John Ritter Research Program at McGovern Medical School, and Director of the joint MD-PhD Program between MD Anderson Cancer Center and at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), and recruits students from the University of Puerto Rico. Dr Milewicz’s career focuses on research to identify the genetic and molecular triggers for vascular diseases and mentoring the next generation of physician scientists. Her research has identified the altered genes triggering vascular diseases, with an initial and continued emphasis on thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections, and more recently focus on moyamoya disease and early onset atherosclerosis. She has also sought to identify the molecular links between the defective genes and the resulting vascular diseases. She chairs two international research consortiums, the Montalcino Aortic Consortium to define precision medical care for genetic vascular diseases and a Leducq Network of Excellence to identify molecular triggers for acute aortic dissections. She was inducted into the honorary societies for physician scientists, the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians (AAP), and currently serves as an AAP Council member. Dr. Milewicz has worked to increase awareness of risk factors for acute aortic dissections, including participating and chairing boards for the American Heart Association, Canadian Genetic Aortic Disorder Association, the John Ritter Foundation, and the Marfan Foundation. She has received numerous honors for her research, mentorship and advocacy, including Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award, American Heart Association Merit Award, Rice University Distinguished Alumni Award, and the 2023 Advocacy Award from the American Society of Human Genetics, and will be receiving the 2024 Genomic and Precision Medicine Medal of Honor from the American Heart Association at the meeting in November.

Debra Murray, Ph.D., a leader in equity, mentoring, and research education, is a 2021 recipient of the Norton Rose Fulbright Faculty Excellence Award in Educational Leadership. She was awarded the All of Us Evenings With Genetics Research Program from the NIH All of Us Research Program. Dr. Murray is Director of Genetics/Genomics Education Programs in the Human Genome Sequencing Center, and an Associate Professor in the Molecular and Human Genetics Department and co-Director of the Office of Community Engagement and Equity at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). She provides faculty training opportunities and medical genetics’ training programs for M1/M2 students. She is a member of the Engagement, Communication, and Education (ECE) Team that provides community engagement research for the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (IDDRC) and Education Core Director of the NCI P20 BCM/Texas Southern University Partnership Collaborative Union for Cancer Research, Education and Disparities (CURED).

Yentli Soto Albrecht, a 7th-year MD-PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, has led justice, equity, diversity & inclusion efforts at the American Physician Scientists Association (APSA) through various roles for five years. Yentli served as APSA president-elect, president, and immediate past president, as well as diversity committee chair and now vice-chair. During her APSA leadership tenure she supported the creation of annual programming for dual-degree applicants, which has benefitted thousands of participants, including those from underrepresented backgrounds in medicine and science. She recently obtained her PhD in the Douglas Wallace lab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she studied the role of mitochondrial function in regulating SARS-CoV-2 replication and pathogenesis. Yentli hopes to pivot into studying neurodegeneration and leverage her physician-scientist training to cure familial Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in honor of her father in her lifetime.

V. Reid Sutton, M.D. is a tenured Professor of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He completed medical school at the University of Kentucky, a pediatric residency at Washington University in St. Louis, and training in clinical genetics and clinical biochemical genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He is board-certified in Clinical Genetics and Clinical Biochemical Genetics and is active in maintenance of certification. He is the Director of the Medical Genetics Residency and Fellowship programs at Baylor College of Medicine. He is a past Chair of the ACGME Review Committee for Medical Genetics and Genomics and also a past Chair of the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics. He served two terms on the ACGME board of directors where he served as Chair of the Committee on Requirements. He is a fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, a director of the Society of Inherited Metabolic Diseases and council member of the International Skeletal Dysplasia Society, and member of the American Society of Human Genetics, and serves on the USMLE Pathology and Genetics test development committee. Clinical and research interests include skeletal dysplasias, inborn errors of metabolism, and gene discovery and syndrome identification. He is the Biochemical Genetics Medical Director at Baylor Genetics Laboratories and is the editor for biochemical genetics for the journal Genetics in Medicine.

Raquel Ybañez Salinas, PhD is the Assistant Dean for Career and Alumni Engagement for the MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She is a champion for career growth, student wellness, and success. In her role, she oversees career advising, professional development workshops and events, internships, individual development planning, fellowship navigation, and alumni engagement. She teaches two graduate level classes- Effective Career Planning and NIH Fellowship Proposal Writing. Dr. Salinas is also passionate about building a vibrant and connected alumni community and works to strengthen ties between alumni and the graduate school, fostering opportunities for mentorship, networking, and collaboration. As a first-generation college student, Dr. Salinas is deeply committed to demystifying the pathways to careers in science, ensuring they are accessible and transparent for all students. Her academic journey began with a BS in Chemistry from UT Austin, followed by an MS in Biochemistry from Texas State University, and a PhD in Pharmacology from Duke University. She further honed her expertise during a postdoctoral appointment in the Duke Office of Biomedical Graduate Diversity, where she evaluated support programs for underrepresented minority biomedical doctoral students. In her free time, you can find her experimenting with new baking recipes, enjoying walks with her dog, Dany, or exploring the vibrant Houston arts scene.

Dr. Audra Iness is a current Medical Genetics Fellow and former Pediatrician Scientist Program Chief Resident at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). She completed MD-PhD training at Virginia Commonwealth University where her research was focused on cell cycle regulation in ovarian cancer. Dr. Iness has since conducted research at BCM and MD Anderson Cancer Center. She has developed a passion for creating new genomic diagnostic tools with particular interest in clinical applications of single cell sequencing for immune phenotyping. In this process, Dr. Iness has received an NIH F30 Award, Wright Scholar Awards, and American Society of Hematology Minority Hematology Fellowship Award. She continues to advocate for physician scientist trainees as former APSA President (2018-2019).

Chirag B. Patel, MD, PhD is an assistant professor of neuro-oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC), and a faculty member of the Neuroscience and Cancer Biology graduate programs at the MDACC/UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. He holds BS/MSE degrees in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University, and completed MD/PhD training at the UTHealth Houston/MDACC MSTP, during which time he served on APSA's executive council and chaired the AMA Medical Student Section's Committee on Scientific Issues. He completed adult neurology residency at UCLA with dedicated NIH Research Education Program (R25)-supported research, before a postdoctoral fellowship in multimodality molecular imaging and clinical fellowship in neuro-oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he was supported by the Stanford Cancer Institute's Fellowship Award and American Brain Tumor Association's Basic Research Fellowship supported by the Ryan J. Hanrahan Memorial. He also served on the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Associate Member Council (AMC). He then started on faculty at Stanford in the neurology and radiology departments, where he served as the adult neuro-oncology fellowship program director. He was awarded a Stanford Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute Neuroscience:Translate Grant that led to the development of a minimally-invasive technology for measuring intracranial pressure, which is the basis for a start-up (SensoBrain). He was recognized as one of the 40 Under 40 in Cancer Rising Stars and Emerging Leaders. Dr. Patel was subsequently recruited to MDACC as a McNair Scholar. His translational research laboratory at MDACC studies alternating electric fields as a form of anti-cancer therapy (with one issued patent and another pending); neuronal-brain cancer interactions; and molecular imaging and advanced neuroimaging to enable earlier detection of disease progression in patients with brain cancer. His research is supported by the McNair Medical Institute at The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation, the AACR-Novocure Career Development Award for Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) Research, and the MDACC Cancer Neuroscience Program. He co-chairs the neuro-oncology track at the Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics Annual World Congress (Los Angeles) and chairs the AI in Clinical Diagnostics session at the THINK AI Healthcare Conference (Stanford). He serves on the editorial board of BMC Neuroscience and serves on grant review study sections for the NIH, AACR, U.S. Department of Defense, and Fibrolamellar Cancer Foundation.