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Susan Thompson Hingle, MD, is president of the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA), and has served on the Board of Directors for the past several years. Dr. Hingle is committed to advancing women in medicine, changing the culture of medicine, and assuring that women physicians thrive. Hingle is an Internal Medicine specialist and a Professor of Medicine, who serves as Associate Dean for Human and Organizational Potential, Chair of the Department of Medical Humanities, and Director of Faculty Development at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Miami University and a medical degree from Rush University Medical College. She completed an Internal Medicine residency at Georgetown University and completed the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Program. Dr. Hingle was awarded the AMWA Elizabeth Blackwell Career Award in 2021 and was recognized as an AMWA Inspire Awardee this past September.

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Sarah England, PhD, accepted the position of professor of OB/GYN at Washington University in St. Louis on July 15, 2011. Prior to that, she was on faculty for 14 years at the University of Iowa in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics. Dr. England’s basic science research focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying uterine function during pregnancy. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, the March of Dimes and other federal agencies. Dr. England has written many research and review articles and has reviewed for multiple journals in both basic science and clinical fields. Dr. England serves on review committees for multiple funding agencies including the NIH, AHA and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. England was a 2005-06 Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow and worked in the office of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for one year on policies related to maternal child health issues, women’s health and the healthcare workforce. 

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Sana D. Karam, MD, PhD, a renowned radiation oncologist widely known for cutting-edge cancer research that combines radiation therapy and immunotherapy to treat head and neck, and pancreatic tumors, has been named the James S. McDonnell Professor of Radiation Oncology and head of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. 

Karam comes to WashU Medicine from the University of Colorado School of Medicine, where she is the Marsico Endowed Chair of Head and Neck Cancer Research and a professor and vice chair of translational research in the Department of Radiation Oncology.

A passionate clinician, Karam also is an innovative scientist. She holds three investigator-initiated R01 grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and multiple industry-sponsored awards, is project leader of the Head and Neck Cancer SPORE at the University of Colorado and leads numerous investigator-initiated trials focused on advancing research from the laboratory bench to the bedside.

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Jennifer A. Philips is the Co-Director of the Infectious Diseases Division. Dr. Philips is principal investigator of an NIH-funded lab that studies how Mycobacterium tuberculosis evades the host immune response. M. tuberculosis causes TB, one of the world’s most deadly infections. It has infected humans for millenia and is highly adapted to navigate the complexities of the human immune system. The discoveries in the Philips laboratory have delineated how Mtb blocks lysosomal trafficking, alters host metabolism, and impairs antigen presentation. Her laboratory has identified clinically available drugs that restore the ability of the host to clear M. tuberculosis, overcoming key immune evasion strategies of Mtb. These findings may lead to novel host-directed therapies for TB. In recent unpublished work, they showed that the abundance of an M.tuberculosis-host co-metabolite in sputum and plasma distinguishes Mtb-infected patients from uninfected controls. This may enable development of biomarkers to individualize TB treatment. Thus, by making fundamental discoveries in Mtb pathogenesis, her group hopes to enable better therapies, novel biomarkers, and effective vaccines for one of humankind’s greatest afflictions.