Arthur L. Burnett, MD, MBA, FACS

Dr. Arthur (Bud) Burnett received his AB degree in Biology from Princeton University and MD and MBA degrees from Johns Hopkins University. His post-graduate training in general surgery, urology, and reconstructive urology and urodynamics was performed at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He subsequently joined the faculty at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, receiving an American Foundation for Urologic Disease scholarship, and thereafter he ascended to his current rank as the Patrick C. Walsh Distinguished Professor of Urology. Dr. Burnett also holds a faculty appointment in the Cellular and Molecular Medicine Training Program, Honorary Professor, Department of Surgery, Radiology, Anesthesia & Critical Care, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, and Professor, Oncology Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  Additional appointments are that of Director of the Basic Science Laboratory in Neuro-urology of the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute and Director of the Male Consultation Clinic. Dr. Burnett has written more than 300 original peer-review articles and 50 book chapters, along with numerous additional editorials and publications relating to his biomedical research and clinical activities.

S. Larry Goldenberg, CM, OBC, MD, FRCSC, FACS, FCAHS

Dr. Goldenberg received his MD from the University of Toronto in 1978, after which he completed a urology residency and a Fellowship in Cancer Endocrinology at the University of British Columbia. He has contributed academically in the fields of benign and malignant prostate disease, including patient education and informed medical decision. He co-founded the Canadian Uro-Oncology Group and has authored 230 peer reviewed papers. In 1991 he wrote the first layman’s prostate cancer book entitled Prostate Cancer - All You Need to Know to Take an Active Part in Your Treatment, which is in its 4th edition, a Canadian bestseller and an important resource for newly diagnosed men and their families.

He founded the renowned Vancouver Prostate Centre (VPC), the Canadian Men’s Health Foundation and the VPC Supportive Care program. Over the course of his career he has raised over $150 million dollars to support these and other hospital programs.

He has served as president of the Canadian Urologic Association (CUA), the Western Section of the American Urologic Association (AUA), the NW Urological Society, and the Canadian Academy of Urologic Surgeons.

He has been appointed a member of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and is an Honorary Member of the AUA. He has been honored with an AUA Distinguished Service Award, a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal, the BCMA’s 2015 Silver Medal of Distinction in clinical care, a lifetime achievement award from the BC Urologic Society, the 2016 CUA Award for lifetime achievement, the 2016 Societe Internationale d’Urologie Distinguished Career Award and the prestigious 2017 AUA Hugh Hampton Young Award.

Dr. Goldenberg has been recognized for his contributions by being invested in the Order of British Columbia, and Canada’s highest honor of merit: the Order of Canada.

Chris M. Gonzalez, MD, MBA, FACS

Dr. Gonzalez graduated from Denison University in Granville, Ohio with a BS degree in 1989. Afterwards he obtained his MD degree from the University of Iowa College of Medicine in Iowa City, Iowa.  Dr. Gonzalez then completed both his general surgical and urologic residency training at the McGaw Medical Center, Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Gonzalez served in the US Army National Guard from January 1991 – January 2001. He joined the Northwestern University Department of Urology in 2000. He served as Chief of Urology for the VA Lakeside from 2003 – 2006 and completed his MBA degree from the Northwestern Kellogg School of Management in 2006.  He was the Director of Surgery for the Northwestern Medicine Surgical Services from 2014 - 2015. In 2015 Dr. Gonzalez was named the Lester Persky Professor and Chair of the Urology Institute at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio where he served until 2018. Currently he is the Albert J. Jr. and Claire Speh Professor and Chair of Urology for the Loyola University Medical Center (LUMC) and the Stritch School of Medicine. He also serves as the Chief of Surgery for the LUMC. He is the Associate Editor for the Genitourinary Reconstruction Section of Urology, and the Section Editor for Urology Practice. He is a member of the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons and was awarded the Barringer medal by the organization in 2022. He is a Trustee of the American Board of Urology.

Kathleen Kobashi, MD, FACS

Kathleen Kobashi is Chair of the Department of Urology at Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas.  Prior to this, she served as Section Head of Urology and Renal Transplantation at Virginia Mason Medical Center for 14 years and Director of the Pelvic Floor Center at that institution. She received her B.A. at Wellesley College and her M.D. at Drexel University (formerly Hahnemann) in Philadelphia and completed her urologic residency at the University of California, Irvine followed by a Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery (FPMRS) fellowship at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles before joining Virginia Mason in 1999.  She recently completed her Executive MBA at the University of Michigan.

In addition to her passion around clinical medicine, Dr. Kobashi is dedicated to research and education of patients and future urologists. She is a mentor for the AUA Leadership program, and she founded the VM FPMRS fellowship in 2003 and a new Urology residency in 2014, for which she served as the Program Director until her departure to Houston.  Dr. Kobashi has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on topics related to urinary incontinence and pelvic prolapse and has been invited faculty on the subject around the globe. She is a Past President of SUFU (Society for Urodynamics, Female Pelvic Medicine and Urogenital Reconstruction) and served as the first female President of the Western Section AUA.  She is a Trustee of the American Board of Urology and a new member of the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons.  She currently serves as Associate Editor for both the AUA’s Urology Practice Journal and the Societe Internationale d’Urologie Journal. She received the 2006 Continence Care Champion award from the National Association for Continence, the prestigious Paul Zimskind Award from SUFU in 2010, a Presidential Citation from the American Urological Association in 2013, and the Distinguished Service Award from SUFU in 2022.

Jennifer Miles-Thomas, MD FPMRS

Dr. Miles-Thomas earned her medical degree from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois in 2001 after completing her undergraduate degree in Biology at Virginia Commonwealth University. She served her general surgery internship in the Department of Surgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, where she also completed her urology residency and fellowships in Female Urology and Endourology at The James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute. She is currently pursuing a MBA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a focus on data analytics. Dr. Miles-Thomas is a Diplomate of the American Board of Urology and is also board certified in Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery. She is currently the CEO and President of Urology of Virginia, one of the largest private and academic Urology groups in the US. She is also the Medical Director of the Pelvic Health program at Chesapeake Regional Healthcare. Dr. Miles-Thomas provides specialized care in female reconstructive surgery, pelvic prolapse, incontinence, complicated urinary disorders, and disorders of the urinary system due to neurologic disease. 

She is a member of the American Urological Association (AUA), Mid-Atlantic Section of the AUA, Large Urology Group Practice Association (LUGPA), Society of Urodynamics, Female Pelvic Medicine and Urogenital Reconstruction, American Urogynecologic Society, and Society of Women in Urology. 

Craig A. Peters, MD, FAAP, FACS

Craig Peters, MD, is the Chief, Pediatric Urology, Children’s Health, Professor of Urology, University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, TX. He is currently the interim Surgeon-in-Chief at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas. He received a BA and MD degree from the Johns Hopkins University, did his surgery and urology residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital at the Brady Urological Institute, a Pediatric Urology Fellowship at Boston Children's Hospital and a research fellowship at Children's and Harvard. After joining the faculty of Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, he developed the pediatric urology laboratory and carried on research into basic development and pathophysiology of the fetal urinary tract. His research has been funded by NIH/NIDDK and focused on urinary obstruction, vesicoureteral reflux, and bladder dysfunction, as well as quantitative imaging and robotics. Dr. Peters has extensive experience with developing minimally invasive surgical techniques, including robot-assisted procedures and treatment of pediatric urologic problems. He has authored numerous papers and chapters on minimally invasive surgery in children and lectured internationally in this area.

Dr. Peters was the John E. Cole Professor of Urology and Director of Pediatric Urology at the University of Virginia, where he continued his work in basic research and minimally invasive surgery, and subsequently was Chief of Surgical Innovation at Children’s National and an investigator at the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation in Washington, DC, before moving to Dallas.

Dr. Peters served as chair of the AUA Vesicoureteral Reflux Guidelines Committee, the NIDDK DSMB for the RIVUR Trial of vesicoureteral reflux, and several research workshops for the NIH in Pediatric Urology. He has recently served as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Urological Association and the NIDDK Advisory Council. He is also a member of the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons, the Society of Pediatric Urologic Surgeons and the Society of Scholars at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Peters is on several editorial boards, is the pediatric editor of the Campbell-Walsh Textbook of Urology, and has published more than 180 original articles and over 100 chapters.

Linda Dairiki Shortliffe, MD

Linda. Dairiki Shortliffe is the Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor and Chair of Urology Emerita at Stanford University.  She served as Department Chair of Urology at Stanford University for 16 years, President and Trustee of the American Board of Urology, President of the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons (AAGUS) and as the Hewlett Foundation Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and a Stanford University Clayman Institute Faculty Fellow. 

Dr. Shortliffe was Chair of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Bladder Research Program Review Group that produced an HSS (US Health and Human Services) document that guided benign bladder research and funding for over a decade:  Overcoming Bladder Disease: a Strategic Plan For Research, Deputy Chair of the NIH Consensus Panel on Impotence,  a member of NIDDK Special Grants Chartered Review Committee, NIH Urology Strategic Planning Committee, and other NIH, NIDDK committees.

She examined basic mechanisms in prostatitis, effects of pregnancy and sex hormones on the urinary tract, urinary tract infections, and genitourinary imaging and physiology, and authored over 150 publications.  She is interested in advancing urologic scientific and medical education and was founding Chief of Pediatric Urology at Stanford University Medical Center (SUMC).  She was President of the AAGUS in 2021-22, Vice-President, and Senior Councilor.  She served as President, Trustee, and examiner of the American Board of Urology (ABU) and member of the ABU/American Urological Association (AUA) Joint Exam Committee, President of the Society of University Urologists, Chair of the Society of Urology Chairs and Program Directors, Chair Urology Section of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP),  Chair of American Urological Association (AUA)/European Association of Urology Academic Fellowship Program, as an Associate Editor AUA News, and member of the American College Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Urology Residency Review Committee, and American Urological Association Council on Education, Publications, and Core Curriculum Steering Committees. She is a member of the AAGUS and CSGUS.

She was featured in the National Library of Medicine exhibit, “Changing the Face of Medicine,” and recipient of the 2018 SWIU Jean Fourcroy Leadership Award, 2016 New York Academy of Medicine Ferdinand C. Valentine Medal, 2015 American Urological Association Distinguished Service Award, 2020 AUA Honorary Member, 2012 Distinguished Alumnae of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Pediatric Urology, 2008 Stanford University Asian Faculty Award, and included in Forty Careers in Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine 2000. She was a visiting professor to multiple institutions including Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital, Siem Reap Cambodia in 2018 to introduce pediatric urologic procedures.  She is in the Stanford University oral history project.

She was a Director on the Board of Avenidas (a nonprofit to support programs for older adults and their families, Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee), a Director at the Palo Alto Art Foundation (CoChair of Governance Committee), a member of California Council on Science & Technology (CCST, a nonprofit to provide objective advice on legislative public policy issues involving science), an independent Director at Vivus Inc., (public biopharmaceutical company), past member of the Medical Advisory Board (Urology) Bayer Pharmaceutical, Dornier Aries Medical Advisory Board, and Western Council of MedShare (MedShare.org; a nonprofit to improve healthcare and environment via recycling and redistributing medical supplies).

She is currently a member of the Medical Advisory Board to Dornier MedTech (WPE), Immediate Past President of the AAGUS, and a Distinguished Expert on the California Council on Science & Technology.  

She received her AB cum laude in History and Science from Radcliffe/Harvard College, MD from Stanford University, urologic and chief residency training at Stanford University Medical Center, and pediatric urological training at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.