Alice Cheng,MD

Associate Professor, University of Toronto

Dr. Alice Cheng is a member of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at Trillium Health Partners (Credit Valley Hospital) in Mississauga and Unity Health Toronto (St. Michael’s Hospital) in Toronto and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto.

She has been involved with the development of the Diabetes Canada clinical practice guidelines since 2003 and served as Chair for the 2013 version. Currently, she is serving as Chair of the Scientific Planning Committee for the 2023 and 2024 American Diabetes Association annual Scientific Meeting.

She is actively involved in continuing education and has received a Certificate of Recognition from the Ontario College of Family Physicians for her contributions to diabetes care and family medicine education. In addition, she has received the national Charles H. Best Award and the Gerald S. Wong Service Award from Diabetes Canada. She is also the creator of The Med Ed Pledge – an initiative to increase Diversity & Inclusion in continuing medical education.

Clare Lee,MD, MHS

Executive Medical Director, Global Medical Affairs, Eli Lilly and Company

Dr. Clare Lee is an endocrinologist and clinical research physician in Global Medical Affairs at Eli Lilly and Company. Dr. Lee received a medical degree from Stony Brook, State University of New York and completed Endocrinology Fellowship at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Prior to Lilly, Dr. Lee was an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Division of Endocrinology with clinical expertise and research focus on type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Holly McGarraugh

Former CEO, Apieron

Holly McGarraugh has spent her career almost exclusively in the diabetes medical device and diabetes data areas, having started her career as a diabetes clinician. She has focused on working in early startup organizations in leadership positions that excelled in innovative technologies, services, and diabetes data platforms and grew to multibillion-dollar organizations. She has always advocated for patient access to life changing technologies and data.

Holly was an early member of LifeScan prior to its acquisition by Johnson & Johnson, and was on the original TheraSense leadership team, acquired by Abbott, where she led the early worldwide FreeStyle Navigator commercial team (precursor to the FreeStyle Libre). More recently, she held senior leadership roles at Glooko and has been continuing her work in the diabetes world with volunteer and consulting work since January 2020. Holly has a master’s degree in Medical Education from Vanderbilt University. She is a passionate advocate for people with diabetes and the many issues we can impact on SDoH.

Athena Philis-Tsimikas,MD

Corporate VP, Scripps Health, San Diego

Dr. Athena Philis-Tsimikas is the corporate vice president of the Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute at Scripps Health in San Diego, California. With over 25 years of experience, she leads the Diabetes Care Line, which creates programs, conducts research, and delivers diabetes services across five Scripps hospitals, 25 outpatient facilities, and the community, which serves over 50,000 patients with diabetes.

Dr. Philis-Tsimikas developed and implemented the innovative Project Dulce program, which cares for underserved populations with diabetes utilizing nurse care management and peer educators in partnership with the primary care physicians to improve outcomes. Dr. Philis-Tsimikas and Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute are actively promoting and training community physicians and community health centers to participate in community-based clinical research that will bring innovative health care solutions to their communities.

Dr. Philis-Tsimikas’ contributions to science include development of alternative, team-based care management programs for diverse patient populations; evaluation of telemedicine approaches to care and self-management education; creation and oversight of the Diabetes Medicines Clinical Trials program for Scripps Health; establishment of a systemwide glucose management program for a large community-based integrated health-care system; and assessment of health-care impact on costs in the diabetes population.  

Barbara Troupin,MD, MBA

Former SVP, Medical Affairs, MyoKardia (acquired by BMS)

Dr. Barbara Troupin has more than 20 years of pharmaceutical industry executive leadership experience across medical affairs, clinical development, and regulatory affairs in small, private and publicly traded pharmaceutical companies in the US and Europe.

Most recently, Dr. Troupin served as SVP of Medical Affairs at MyoKardia, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company recently acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb for $13.1 billion. There, she led all medical affairs functions, product positioning, and launch readiness in the US and EU for mavacamten, a promising, first-to-market, precision medicine treatment for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Prior to MyoKardia, Dr. Troupin served as CMO at ERX Pharmaceuticals; CMO and VP of Clinical Development & Regulatory Affairs at Aquinox; CMO at Apricus; and VP of Medical Affairs at Vivus, where she held roles in clinical development and subsequently medical affairs, leading clinical and medical teams in the development, approval, and launch of Qsymia for the treatment of obesity.

Dr. Troupin has strategic leadership experience in building and growing teams, departments and companies, pipeline optimization, regulatory affairs and label negotiation, partnering and fundraising, and key stakeholder relationship nurturing. She sits on the board of Equillium, a publicly traded San Diego biotechnology company focused on the treatment of immune based diseases. Dr. Troupin has completed executive education through Harvard’s Women on Life Science Boards and was selected as a 2019 Women in Bio Boardroom Ready participant with frequent continuing education on board leadership. She currently is enjoying a portfolio of activities focused on entrepreneurship, human connection and empowerment, and helping her aging parents to live their best lives.

Sahar Yousef,PhD

Lecturer, Management of Organizations, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business

Dr. Sahar Yousef is a cognitive neuroscientist and faculty at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. After spending over a decade doing Department of Defense research on neuroplasticity and how to improve memory, attention, and overall human performance in as little as 7 weeks, Sahar now researches and teaches busy leaders and their teams how to be more productive and effective at work.

At Berkeley, Sahar runs the Becoming Superhuman Lab (featured in Forbes and Business Insider) and teaches one of the most popular MBA classes, called "Becoming Superhuman: The Science of Productivity and Performance". Sahar has become one of the world’s leading experts on cognitive training and is featured as a top scientist in the Headspace wellbeing app (used by over 2 million people every day). In 2021, Sahar produced a multi-part video series with John Legend on the science of music and its impact on our focus and emotions.

Since COVID began, Dr. Yousef has given over 500 talks and keynotes to knowledge workers in 50+ countries, has advised executive teams at Google, Coinbase, and Visa, and has even been invited to speak for the US Congress.