Professor Richard van Zyl-Smit is a consultant pulmonologist at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa, and Deputy Head of the Division of Pulmonology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He is a principal researcher at the University of Cape Town Lung Institute and is President Elect of the South African Thoracic Society. His major clinical and research interests are airway diseases, specifically: asthma and COPD with a focus on tobacco, household air pollution, electronic cigarettes, and their impact on pulmonary immune responses (to pneumococcal and mycobacterial infection) and the development of COPD. He has over 80 peer reviewed publications and he has additionally been involved in industry sponsored research for over 13 years across a spectrum of pulmonary disorders. He serves on the American Thoracic Society International Health Committee and is passionate about teaching, training, sustainability and mental health in health care. He is the South African representative on the GOLD assembly and a GINA global ambassador. After qualifying as a pulmonologist, he completed a basic science PhD investigating the effects of tobacco smoke and nicotine on human pulmonary defence mechanisms to tuberculosis infection.

Dr Margaret A Pisani is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr Pisani received a BS in physics from Iona College and an MS in biomedical engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology. She received her MD from Temple University in 1994 and an MPH from Yale University in 2001. She did her internship, residency, and pulmonary and critical care fellowship at Yale University. In addition, she served as Chief Medical Resident at Yale. Dr Pisani then joined the faculty in the Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. She has held several administrative and leadership roles at Yale including Associate Winchester Clinic Director, Director of Respiratory Care and Pulmonary & Critical Care Fellowship Program Director. Her research is based in the intensive care unit where she studies delirium and sleep in critical illness. She also studies the care of older ICU patients and functional and cognitive outcomes after critical illness. In addition, she collaborates on research of interventional pulmonary procedures, lung cancer screening and pleural disease.

Dr Harly Greenberg is Chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine at North Shore University Hospital and Long  Island Jewish Medical Center, Northwell Health in New York and Associate Director of the Northwell Health Lung Institute, Medical Director of the Northwell Sleep Disorders Center and  Professor of Medicine Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra-Northwell.  

Dr Harly Greenberg is a recognized expert in sleep medicine and has helped to advance the field of sleep medicine as an investigator or co-investigator in multiple clinical research trials. His research has contributed to our understanding of the cardiovascular consequences of obstructive sleep apnea. In addition, Dr. Greenberg was a co-investigator in a major international clinical trial that established the efficacy of continuous positive airway pressure therapy as an important treatment for patients with milder forms of obstructive sleep apnea. His work has also contributed to the development of new therapies for sleep apnea and other sleep disorders. He is also a co-investigator on a research protocol on central neural correlates of respiratory sensation and dyspnea, funded by NHLBI.