Peter Skillington received his undergraduate degree at the University of Tasmania, graduating in 1977. He completed his Cardiothoracic Surgery Fellowship in 1987. During his cardiothoracic training, he spent time at the Alfred Hospital, Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne and the Prince Charles Hospital, in Brisbane. He worked in cardiac and paediatric cardiac surgery at the Southampton General Hospital in the UK for 12 months. Then followed a six-month fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, USA followed by a further six-month fellowship at the Boston Children’s Hospital. He has been in continuous consultant cardiothoracic surgical practice at the Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) since 1990. Between 1990-1995, he also worked as a sessional consultant at the Royal Children’s Hospital, and his private practice has been centred around the Epworth Hospital, Richmond. His major interests have been in aortic valve replacement, where he has pioneered the Ross procedure in Australia. His other main interest has been adult congenital cardiac surgery, where he has grown the adult congenital service at RMH from zero to now performing approximately 60 cases per year. Between 2001 and 2003, he served as the President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgeons (ANZSCTS). He was one of the Founders of the ANZSCTS Cardiac Surgery Database. He occupied many positions within the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS), including being Chairman of the FRACS Cardiothoracic Training Board of Studies. He was Director of the RMH Cardiothoracic Surgery Unit between 2020 to 2025. He continues to work at RMH in an Honorary Teaching role. He has been an author on 70 peer-reviewed publications and has given over 100 presentations at national and international meetings, as well as several invited lectures at international meetings.

Hiroyuki Nishi is a cardiovascular surgeon and professor of department of cardiovascular surgery at Tokai University Hachioji Hospital. He graduated from Osaka University in 1995 and worked in Melbourne and Brisbane from 2004 to 2007. He is currently one of the councilors of the Japanese Society for Cardiovascular Surgery and the Japanese Association for Thoracic Surgery. He has been involved in minimally invasive cardiac surgery (MICS) as a consultant surgeon for a long time, and has been active in promoting MICS in Japan as a key member of the Japanese Association of Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery. He is well versed in MICS in general, and has also performed the world's first stent graft implantation using an aortic angioscopy. He has also published a paper on new postoperative management of cardiovascular surgery using the new diuretic tolvaptan, and on congestive liver failure due to severe heart failure, making him a cardiovascular surgeon with a deep knowledge of the entire field of cardiovascular surgery.

A Complex PCI operator with major interventional interest in the treatment of CTOs, complex coronary and CHIP cases. Among other interests are post-CABG PCI (restoring native circulation), rotational and orbital atherectomy, laser, intravascular imaging. 'Post-CABG angina' clinic and review of patients with ‘no revascularisation options available’ label, surgical turndowns... Proctoring in Australia and overseas in CTO PCI and CHIP

MBBS, FRACS, DMedHS Current appointments: Senior Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Transplantation, The Alfred Hospital, (now retired from clinical practice) and Professor of cardiothoracic surgery, Monash University, Melbourne Australia and Honorary Professor, School of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia. Clinical work: Prof. McGiffin trained in Brisbane but spent most of his career at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where his major focus was heart and lung transplantation, mechanical circulatory support, and pulmonary endarterectomy. He returned to Australia in 2013 as head of the department of cardiothoracic surgery and transplantation at the Alfred and Professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Monash University, Melbourne from 2013 to 2021. His clinical activities were adult cardiac surgery, pulmonary endarterectomy, adult heart transplantation, mechanical circulatory support, adult, and pediatric lung transplantation. Research: Since 2013 his major research interest has been in donor heart preservation using hypothermic oxygenated perfusion (HOPE). Four years of experimental work have underpinned the Australian/New Zealand Clinical Trial of HOPE for which he was the co-Principal Investigator. HOPE preservation has been transformative – there is now no donor heart anywhere in Australia or New Zealand that cannot be transported to a transplant center in either country. Another area of his research is investigating the pathology of ventricular assist device driveline infection as well as novel anti-infective driveline surface modifications.

Dr Emily Granger is a Cardiothoracic and Heart Lung Transplant surgeon. Her areas of interest include TAVI, ECMO, transplants and trauma surgery. Emily completed her medical degree at the University of Queensland (1997) and her surgical fellowship with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) in 2006. She is involved with the NSW Organ Tissue Donation Service and Deceased Donor Organ Procurement, and, in 2014, was involved in the world’s first successful ‘donation after circulatory death’ heart transplant. Since then, the Transplant Unit at St Vincent’s Hospital has performed over 100 DCD heart transplants. Dr Granger lectures at the Clinical Medical School at St Vincent’s Hospital and the University of Notre Dame, and is active in teaching medical students, junior doctors, and trainee surgeons. She is an EMST and CCRISP instructor with RACS. In 2017, she was appointed to the Board of Cardiothoracic Surgical Examiners. She is currently the President of the ANZ Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons.

Nelson Alphonso is the Director of Cardiac Surgery at the Queensland Children's Hospital and co-director of Queensland Paediatric Research. He has over 100 publications in paediatric cardiac surgery. He is also the co-founder and Program Manager of the Australia New Zealand Congenital Outcomes Registry for Surgery (ANZCORS).