Dr. Nikhil Panicker is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurosciences at the Cleveland Clinic. His lab studies what is the underlying mechanism leading to pathology in Parkinson’s disease (PD), Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and other neurodegenerative disorders, with the eventual goal of developing therapeutics that block or slow disease progression. Dr. Panicker obtained his PhD at Iowa State University in 2016 where he worked on neuroinflammation in PD. He then trained as a postdoctoral in Ted and Valina Dawson’s lab at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Dr. Ray Dorsey is the director of the Center for the Brain & the Environment at the Atria Health and Research Institute.  The center’s mission is to identify the root causes of brain diseases from autism to Alzheimer’s so that we can prevent them.  With his colleagues, he wrote Ending Parkinson’s Disease and the forthcoming The Parkinson’s Plan, which details a new path to preventing and treating this terrible disease.    

Ray previously directed the Center for Health + Technology at the University of Rochester, chaired the international Huntington Study Group, led the movement disorders division at Johns Hopkins, and consulted for McKinsey & Company.    

In 2015, the White House recognized Ray as a “Champion for Change” for Parkinson’s disease. 

Shalini Padmanabhan is Senior Vice President and head of Translational Research at The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. She has earned an undergraduate degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from U.I.C.T, India and a PhD in Neuroscience from the Medical College of Georgia. Shalini trained as a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University, working on novel targets to treat Parkinson’s disease.

At MJFF, she oversees a team of professionals, closely linked to Parkinson's community to develop an innovative strategic vision for accelerating research and drug development for Parkinson's disease. Shalini's team primarily focuses on developing, implementing and managing programs that fall within the early drug discovery pipeline that includes discovery biology efforts, target id and validation efforts, preclinical therapeutic develop and biofluid biomarker efforts.

Larry Gifford is the President and Co-Founder of PD Avengers, also known as the Global Alliance to End Parkinson’s Disease, a worldwide movement uniting more than 9,000 members and 150 organizations across 100 countries to add urgency to the effort to end Parkinson’s. Diagnosed with Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease in 2017, Larry brings a rare mix of media experience, creative storytelling, and patient-led advocacy to the global stage. He’s also the host of award-winning podcasts including When Life Gives You Parkinson’s, The Michael J. Fox for Parkinson's Research Podcast and On Time with the Brian Grant Foundation.

Rebecca Gifford is a writer, workshop facilitator and Parkinson’s and care partner advocate living in Vancouver, BC. She works with Parkinson’s, brain health and other organizations to support people affected by chronic and neurodegenerative conditions through creative and support programming. She co-hosted the podcast When Life Gives You Parkinson’s with her husband Larry, and she speaks and shares her story around the world.