Dr George is a Staff Specialist at the John Hunter, Newcastle and a member of HMRI’s Asthma and Breathing Group. He recently completed a two-year fellowship with the Oxford Pleural Unit and is a doctoral candidate with the University of Newcastle. His research focuses on enhancing safety and quality in pleural intervention. He is the Australian lead for PROSPECT, a large-scale observational trial of pleural procedure outcome, and is leading the STREAMLINE feasibility RCT, which examines a novel diagnostic pathway in MPE. He is a member of the ERS Taskforce on Benign Pleural Effusions, and TSANZ’s working group on pleural procedure competency.

Professor Y. C. Gary Lee is a Professor of Respiratory Medicine at UWA and a consultant chest physician at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital where he set up and directs Australia’s first centralized hospital pleural service. He is a world leader in pleural research and heads a translational research group at the Institute for Respiratory Health. His pleural program uniquely integrates clinical, lab, and allied health research arms with his clinical pleural service. He has led several high-profile investigator-led multicentre randomized trials. He has an H-index of 65 (total citations 15000+) from 330 publications including 10+ papers in the New Engl J Med, JAMA, and Lancet journals. His publications have been included in 20+ international guidelines directly impacting global practice. Professor Lee was the recipient of the Research Medal of the Thoracic Society of Australia & NZ in 2021 and the Asian Pacific Society of Respirology Research Medal in 2016 and was named the Cancer Council WA Researcher of the Year in 2019. He has won successive NHMRC/MRFF Fellowships and has delivered 300+ pleural lectures at conferences in 32 countries.

Dr Barnett completed his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery at the University of Melbourne in 1996 and has trained in general surgery, having received a Fellowship from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in General Surgery in 2004. He is a qualified Cardiothoracic Surgeon having received his Fellowship in Cardiothoracic Surgery from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 2009. He undertook a Fellowship in 2008 at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, U.S.A. as the Thoracic Surgical Oncology International Fellow and a Fellowship in 2009 at the Brigham & Women's Hospital, Harvard University, Boston, U.S.A. as an international Cardiac Surgical Fellow. He is currently appointed as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Surgery of the University of Melbourne and as a Consultant Thoracic Surgeon at the Austin Hospital, Sir Peter McCallum Cancer Centre, Royal Melbourne and Western General Hospitals. He is part of the multi-disciplinary team at all four centres caring for patients with thoracic malignancy. His subspecialty interest is in the minimally invasive diagnosis and treatment of patients with thoracic diseases. Indeed, upon his return from the US in 2010, he pioneered Australia’s first public hospital program for robotic resection of mediastinal tumours at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. The program has developed over the last few years to include complex anatomic lung resection.

Dr Roy is a Respiratory and Sleep Specialist and is the pleural medicine lead at Westmead Hospital.

A/Prof. Badiei is a staff specialist in the department of thoracic medicine at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. He initially completed a degree in Biomedical Engineering and then a PhD in Medicine prior to embarking on a career in medicine. His basic and initial advanced physician training was at the RAH before completing his fellowship at the pleural medicine unit at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Western Australia. He currently works as an interventional pulmonologist and is the pleural lead at the RAH. His research interests are in the area of interventional pulmonology and thoracic imaging.​

Ben Kwan is Head of Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine, The Sutherland Hospital, and Director of Sleep Medicine and Pleural Medicine Lead in St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney.