Dr. Valerie W. Rusch is Attending Thoracic Surgeon and Vice Chair of Clinical Research, Department of Surgery, and Member, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where she holds the Miner Family Chair in Intrathoracic Cancers. After residencies in general and cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Washington, she was a Faculty Associate at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, then a faculty member at the University of Washington. She moved to MSKCC in 1989, where she served as Chief of Thoracic Surgery from 2000 to 2013. Dr. Rusch’s career has been devoted to thoracic surgical oncology, to clinical and translational research, and she has been PI for multiple NCI-sponsored Cooperative Group clinical trials. Dr. Rusch is a Past President of the American College of Surgeons, and has held leadership positions in ASCO, the Society for Thoracic Surgeons, the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, where she is Chair of the Staging and Prognostic Factors Group. She has served as a Director and Chair of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. Dr. Rusch is the recipient of multiple teaching and leadership awards, is author on more than 500 peer-reviewed publications, holds more than 60 visiting professorships and has delivered more than 500 invited lectures. She is currently a member of the leadership team for the American College of Surgeons H.O.P.E. projects in Rwanda and Ethiopia