Mae Alparaque-Corvera (Philippines) is a family medicine and palliative medicine specialist. She is the founding president and CEO of The Ruth Foundation for Palliative and Hospice Care and currently serves as president of the National Palliative and Hospice Care Council of the Philippines (Hospice Philippines). Her work centers on palliative care advocacy, education, and leadership formation.

Esther Hortense Murielle Dina Bell (Cameroon), is a medical oncologist, public health specialist, and senior lecturer at the University of Douala. She is recognized as an expert in palliative care and supportive oncology in Sub-Saharan Africa, having initiated the establishment of the first palliative care unit at Bonassama District Hospital, worked as regional facilitator for Hospice Africa Uganda palliative care initiators program, and founded (and is currently president of) Volunteers for Palliative Care, which does public outreach, provides training, respite care, and hospital and home visits.

Jennifer Hunt (Zimbabwe) is currently a self-employed palliative care social worker, bereavement therapist and family therapist; a recent focus has been to integrate awareness of loss and bereavement in humanitarian settings. She has assisted in establishing palliative care in Zimbabwe, developed training modules, served on technical teams to integrate palliative care into all levels of the health service, and developed regional and national policy documents.

Diah Martina (Indonesia) is a faculty member in the Division of Psychosomatic and Palliative Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Indonesia. In addition to teaching palliative care to undergraduate and graduate students, she is a palliative care physician at Universitas Indonesia Hospital. Her interests focus on strengthening palliative care within health systems and ensuring that care remains responsive to patients’ values, goals, and cultural contexts.

Judith Paice (United States) is an advanced practice nurse whose career is devoted to the relief of pain associated with cancer, and teaching others regarding pain and palliative care. She has authored more than 250 scientific manuscripts and, in 2018, was named one of 30 visionaries in the field by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Care (AAHPM). Dr. Paice plans to assist IAHPC in advocating access for medications to treat pain and other symptoms seen in serious illness, along with educational efforts to advance palliative care globally.

Smriti Rana (India) is head of strategic programs and partnerships at Pallium India and head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Training and Policy on Access to Pain Relief in Trivandrum. Recent roles entailed integrating palliative care into the Indian health system through policy reform, and focusing on increasing safe access to adequate pain relief especially in LMICs. She advocates for the inclusion of people with lived experience in decision making, patient empowerment, and the decolonization and humanization of healthcare.

Fazle Noor Biswas (Bangladesh) is a registered pharmacist of the Pharmacy Council of Bangladesh currently working as chief pharmacist and coordinator at Cancer Services & Research Centre in Dhaka. He established a clinical course on oncology and palliative care for pharmacists that has trained more than 200 pharmacists. Mr. Fazle has been actively involved for the past 14 years as a palliative care trainer, advocating for the development of the role of pharmacists in palliative care for healthcare and social care professionals in Bangladesh.

Billy Rosa (United States), whose career began as palliative care nurse practitioner, is an assistant attending behavioral scientist in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He has contributed to several national and international palliative care initiatives, as well as leading and collaborating on multiple streams of research related to palliative care access disparities, cancer pain, serious illness communication, and palliative care intervention development. He has edited five books and contributed to more than 300 academic publications.

Anna Voeuk (Canada) is a palliative care physician in the Edmonton Zone Palliative Care Program and an assistant clinical professor at the University of Alberta. She has participated in global humanitarian responses to natural hazards, conflict, forced displacement, and disease outbreaks in different countries. Her work also includes advocacy, education, and provision of palliative care for underserved populations, including people experiencing incarceration. She plans to contribute to IAHPC’s ongoing work toward achieving equitable access to palliative care worldwide.

Liliana De Lima (United States), executive-director of the IAHPC and ex-officio member of the board, has led the organization since 1999, when she joined as its first and only employee. Her experience includes a background in clinical psychology, healthcare administration, and pain and policy studies. Under her leadership, the IAHPC has grown substantially and is now recognized as a leading global organization in the field.

Lukas Radbruch (Germany) joined the IAHPC board in 2011, serving as its chair from 2014 through 2025. He is chair of the Department of Palliative Medicine at the University of Bonn, a position he has held since 2010. Professor Radbruch co-authored a German textbook on palliative medicine (Lehrbuch der Palliativmedizin). His main research interests are symptom assessment, opioid treatment, fatigue, cachexia, and ethical issues in palliative care.

Kim Adzich (Canada) is a community palliative care physician and general practitioner oncologist in Canada, with a 35-year career in rural family medicine and palliative care, working in Canada and New Zealand. He has an interest in international health, obtaining a diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene, and has been a longtime supporter of BELhospice, a community palliative care program in Belgrade, Serbia.

Jane Bates (United Kingdom) is a trained family medicine specialist with more than 25 years of palliative care clinical practice, teaching, and research expertise developed in Southern Africa. Dr. Bates pioneered primary palliative care models of service delivery in Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Blantyre, Malawi, using a model that would later be scaled up in public health facilities nationally.

Veronica Dussel (United States) is assistant investigator for the Department of Pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital, and associate research scientist at Dana-Faber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center in Boston, Massachusetts. She coordinates several academic and research projects in the US, Latin America, and Argentina with the common goal of increasing access to palliative care and improving quality of life for children with life-threatening illnesses.

Natalie Greaves (Barbados) is a lecturer in public health and coordinator of the MPhil/PhD program in public health and epidemiology at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill Campus. She is a longtime advocate for the development of palliative care services and education in the Caribbean; her research focuses on applied public health, cancer prevention and control, palliative care, healthcare organization and delivery, and access pathways to care.

Victoria Hewitt (United Kingdom) is a doctor specializing in palliative care advocacy and education, with extensive expertise in online medical education, healthcare quality improvement, and project management. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, she has worked to raise awareness of the moral distress that is experienced by healthcare workers unprepared and untrained in end-of-life care.

Alejandra Palma (Chile) is a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, at the University of Chile in Santiago, as well as working as a clinical attending physician. Dr. Palma has been dedicated to the clinical and academic development of palliative care in Chile since 2005; she developed and implemented a clinical palliative care program at the country’s Pontifical Catholic University that launched in 2014.

Russell Portenoy (United States) is a neurologist trained in both pain medicine and palliative medicine, and has been a clinician, educator, and researcher for almost four decades. Named a visionary in palliative care by the AAHPM in 2013, he co-edited the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine and has published 23 books and hundreds of papers and chapters on topics related to pain management and palliative care. Now retired, he hopes to continue developing educational projects and seeks opportunities to contribute to IAHPC research initiatives.

Stella Mwari Rithara (Kenya) is an active palliative care public health champion and leading nurse trainer. She is a palliative care pioneer recognized by St. Christopher’s Hospice, a mentor at the Institute of Palliative Medicine in India, and palliative care coordinator for the Nursing Department of Kenya Medical Training College.

Hana Saca-Hazboun (Palestine) is an assistant professor specializing in nursing education at the Tarek Juffali Faculty of Nursing and Health Sciences, Bethlehem University. In addition to her academic position, she focuses on introducing palliative care and ethical issues at end of life to sophomore students, and is involved in teaching post-graduate students enrolled in the Master in Oncology and Palliative Care Nursing.