The members of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) recently elected five new officers to ASTRO’s Board of Directors. Indian-American doctor Neha Vapiwala has been voted the President-elect of the society, an official news release stated.
Dr Vapiwala is the Eli Glatstein, MD Endowed Professor and a Vice Chair in the department of radiation oncology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she also serves as Dean of Admissions for the Perelman School of Medicine.
From 2019 to 2023, Dr. Vapiwala served on the ASTRO Board of Directors as Secretary/Treasurer and chaired the ASTRO Finance/Audit Committee, playing a pivotal role in maintaining the Society’s financial health during the pandemic.
During her previous board tenure, she was instrumental in advancing initiatives related to radiation oncology workforce analysis, trainee resource expansion and early career member engagement. Before serving on the Board, she was president of the Association of Directors of Radiation Oncology Programs (ADROP).
Dr. Vapiwala will represent the society’s 10,000 members, who include physicians, physicists, biologists, dosimetrists, radiation therapists, nurses and other professionals involved in radiation oncology care. She will serve one year each as President-elect, President, Chair of the Board of Directors and Immediate Past Chair.
The society also elected four other members.
Jean Wright, MD, FASTRO, Clinical Affairs and Quality Council Vice Chair
Andrea Ng, MD, MPH, FASTRO, Education Council Vice Chair
Christopher Corso, MD, PhD, Government Relations Council Vice Chair
Malika Siker, MD, FASTRO, Health Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Council Vice Chair
Drs. Wright, Ng, Corso and Siker will serve two-year terms as Vice Chairs, followed by two-year terms as Chairs of their respective councils.
Speaking about her new role, Dr Vapiwala said: “Serving ASTRO in this role is a tremendous honor, responsibility and opportunity for me to listen to and learn from our members. By engaging voices throughout the radiation oncology community and cultivating new and existing partnerships, I will strive to generate deeper understanding of and appreciation for our field, within and beyond ASTRO.”
“Radiation oncology epitomizes high quality, high value care, and we can continue to advance this care through greater investment in patient-centered research, education and health policy. As President-elect, I will advocate on behalf of our members and patients to highlight the critical importance of radiation therapy as a lifesaving treatment and to help address the challenges facing our specialty.”
Key policy issues for Dr. Vapiwala include strengthening support for scientific research and innovation, expanding patient access to radiation therapy and promoting a supportive environment for all radiation oncology professionals.
“I aim to foster a successful, united future for our specialty by engaging with our diverse membership, gathering stakeholder perspectives and encouraging conversations on a broad range of issues impacting our field and how we care for our patients,” she said.
A nationally recognised expert in treating patients with prostate and other genitourinary cancers, Dr. Vapiwala is a member of the National Cancer Institute’s Prostate Cancer Task Force and the JAMA Oncology editorial board. She also serves on committees involving prostate cancer detection and treatment with the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and the National Clinical Trials Network and is the principal investigator of multiple clinical trials.
She also publishes extensively on topics affecting clinical practice, medical training and the physician workforce. She has chaired multiple committees fostering partnerships between radiation, medical and surgical oncologists, and she recently completed a term as Chair of the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education’s Residency Review Committee for Radiation Oncology.
Dr. Jean Wright, elected to serve as the Clinical Affairs and Quality Council Vice Chair, is the incoming Chair of the department of radiation oncology at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, NC, after working as Director of Breast Radiation Oncology and Vice Chair of Patient Safety and Quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Washington, DC.
Dr. Wright recently completed her tenure as Chair of ASTRO’s Clinical Affairs and Quality Committee and previously co-chaired its Practice Accreditation Subcommittee; she remains a longtime surveyor for ASTRO’s APEx – Accreditation Program for Excellence.
A leading expert in radiation treatment for breast cancer, Dr. Wright is the breast section editor of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics (Red Journal). In her new Board role, Dr. Wright will help guide ASTRO’s quality and safety initiatives including APEx, clinical guidelines and safety white papers, as well as RO-ILS: Radiation Oncology Incident Learning System, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year.
Dr. Andrea Ng, the incoming Education Council Vice Chair, is a professor and the BWH Distinguished Chair of Clinical Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School, as well as the Director of Hematologic Malignancy in Radiation Oncology at the Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center in Boston.
Dr. Ng’s experience helping lead ASTRO’s Annual Meeting stretches nearly two decades, including serving as Chair of the Annual Meeting Steering Committee and Scientific Committee and Chair of the Best of ASTRO meeting. A leading expert in treating patients with lymphoma and other hematologic cancers, Dr. Ng is also an active contributor to the board certification process in radiation oncology. While on the ASTRO Board, Dr. Ng will continue to help shape ASTRO’s education and professional development efforts, including mentorship opportunities to support early-career physicians and researchers.
Dr. Christopher Corso, the new Government Relations Council Vice Chair, is a radiation oncologist who serves as medical director of a Levine Cancer Institute clinic within the Atrium Health system and is affiliated with the Charlotte, NC-based SERO physician group. Dr. Corso is the current Chair of ASTRO’s Government Relations Committee, and he also serves on the board of ASTRO’s political action committee (ASTRO PAC). In his new role on the Board of Directors, Dr. Corso will continue his work helping lead the effort to secure payment reform for radiation oncology through the bipartisan, bicameral Radiation Oncology Case Rate (ROCR) Value-Based Payment Program Act of 2024.
Dr. Malika Siker, the incoming Health Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (HEDI) Council Vice Chair, is a professor of radiation oncology and Associate Dean for Student Inclusion and Diversity at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Dr. Siker’s extensive service to ASTRO includes leadership roles on the HEDI Steering Committee and the Congressional Relations Subcommittee, as well as Chair of the HEDI track for ASTRO’s Annual Meeting and as an associate editor of Advances in Radiation Oncology, ASTRO’s open-access journal. In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Siker actively researches the impact of inclusivity efforts to improve health equity and cancer care. During her tenure on the HEDI Council, Dr. Siker will continue her work to foster a culture of inclusion within radiation oncology, including initiatives related to workforce diversity and equitable patient care.
ASTRO members also elected three individuals to join the Society’s Nominating Committee:
Nominating Committee – Academic Physician: Cliff Robinson, MD, FASTRO, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis.
Nominating Committee – Community Practice Physician: Matthew Manning, MD, FASTRO, Cone Health.
Nominating Committee – Radiation or Cancer Biologist: Jean Moran, PhD, FASTRO, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
