Joletta Belton is a writer, nature lover, and advocate for the integration of lived expertise into the study, research, and treatment of pain. She came to her advocacy work after years of living with ongoing pain, struggling to find answers, and ‘failing’ all the treatments. She was forced to medically retire from her career as a firefighter paramedic, a profession which had defined her. Through study and a whole lot of experimentation she came to better understand her pain and what to do about it. Joletta has been a patient partner in pain research, clinical guideline development, and health professional education on teams around the world. She was founding co-chair of IASP's Global Alliance of Partners for Pain Advocacy and is the first Patient & Public Partnerships Editor at the Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy. She shares her experiences and what she's learned along the way at MyCuppaJo.substack.com

Dr. Barreveld is Medical Director of the Pain Management Services and co-Founder and Director of Education and Outreach for the Substance Use Services (SUS). She is Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at Tufts University School of Medicine, and an Anesthesiologist with Commonwealth Anesthesia Associates at Newton-Wellesley Hospital since 2012. Dr. Barreveld is also a Clinical Researcher at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA. She regularly teaches medical students on pain management principles at Harvard Medical School and Tufts University School of Medicine. She graduated from the University of California San Francisco Medical School and completed her Residency in Anesthesiology and Fellowship in Pain Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Her clinical interests are in managing chronic pelvic pain in men and women, acute and chronic postoperative pain, interdisciplinary spine care, safe practices in co-managing pain and addiction, and complex interventional procedures from diagnostic nerve blocks to spinal cord stimulation including dorsal root ganglion stimulation.

Dr. Daniel Buchman is a bioethicist and scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) where he directs the Everyday Ethics Lab. He also serves an associate professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto and a member of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics. In addition, he is a member of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Advisory Committee on Ethics and a member of the recently established Bioethics Council for Canada. Dr. Buchman’s research is at the forefront of exploring ethical issues at the intersection of clinical practice and population health, with a particular focus on ethical issues related to mental health, substance use, and chronic pain. His work delves into themes related to stigma, social justice, identity, and compassion, employing a multidisciplinary approach that combines conceptual and empirical methods. He has a strong commitment to advancing ethical practices in healthcare, which continues to shape policies and improve patient care. Some of Dr Buchman’s current projects explore ethical issues related to stigma, chronic pain, and neurotechnologies; industry-healthcare relationships; opioids; psychedelics; palliative psychiatry; and artificial intelligence and digital health.

Dr. Vollert is a chronic pain researcher from Germany, where he did his PhD in neurophysiology at the University of Heidelberg. After six years at Imperial College in London,UK, he has joined the University of Exeter, UK, as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in October 2023.

His background is in data science and statistics, and he collaborates with clinicians across the UK and Europe to analyze multifaceted datasets searching for predictors of developing chronic pain (for example after surgery) and predicting response to treatment to enable personalized pain medicine. He uses a wide array of methods -sensory phenotyping, patient-reported outcomes, -omics – and machine learning to identify mechanistic subgroups.

Jeffrey S. Mogil is the E.P. Taylor Professor of Pain Studies and a Distinguished James McGill Professor at McGill University, where he formerly directed the Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain. He earned a B.Sc. (Honours) in Psychology from the University of Toronto (1988) and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from UCLA (1993), completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Portland, Oregon (1993–1996), joined the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign faculty, and moved to McGill in 2001. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, Dr. Mogil is renowned for seminal work in pain genetics, sex differences in pain and analgesia, and algesiometric testing in mice; he authored landmark reviews and edited the first textbook in the field, The Genetics of Pain (IASP Press, 2004). He has published 270+ papers and chapters since 1992, delivered nearly 400 invited lectures, holds an h-index of 100 (Google Scholar), and his work has been cited 40,000+ times; a 2022 Stanford analysis ranked him 7th in Anesthesiology and 210th in Neuroscience worldwide. His research has been supported by NIH, CIHR, NSERC, and leading foundations; current support includes a CIHR Foundation Grant, NSERC Discovery Grant, CIHR Sex and Gender Science Chair, and LAEF. Honors include major awards from IASP, CPS, and APS. He has served as Section Editor (Neurobiology) for Pain, chaired the 13th World Congress on Pain Scientific Planning Committee, sat on the IASP Council, and founded the North American Pain School.

Patrice Forget, MD PhD, is the clinical chair in anesthesia at the University of Aberdeen (UK), and an honorary consultant at the NHS Grampian. He was previously a clinical professor in Anesthesia and Pain Medicine in Belgium, and the president of the Belgian Pain Society. He is involved in clinical research, focused on mainly pain, perioperative epidemiology, and clinical pharmacology. Over the past few years, as a principal investigator and/or national coordinator, he has published more than 150 articles, letters, or editorials. He is also the chair of the PANDOS (Pain AND Opioids after Surgery) ESAIC Research Group (European Society of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care). 

Louise Trewern is a lived experience advocate who has contributed extensively to improving support for people living with persistent pain. She worked closely with Live Well With Pain, where she helped develop educational resources and shared insights from her own recovery after coming off high-dose prescription opioids. Her work supported others navigating opioid tapering, and she has been a strong advocate for better pain education for the public. Louise promotes self-management approaches that include healthy eating, gentle movement, and reconnecting with life beyond pain. She has served on a number of national committees, including the Physiotherapy Pain Association, and was Vice Chair of the British Pain Society’s Patient Voice Committee. She also contributed to the NICE Guideline Committee NG215 on Medicines Associated with Dependence or Withdrawal, and is a Fellow of the Wolfson Research Institute at Durham University.

Amy Donnelly, MD, a consultant anesthetist in St. Columcille’s Hospital and St. Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin, Ireland. She obtained her CCST from the College of Anesthesiologists of Ireland in 2020, after which she completed a fellowship in anesthesia in Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge. She then undertook the first perioperative medicine fellowship in Ireland in St. Vincent’s. Amy is a board member of the Faculty of Pain medicine of Ireland for her work on opioid prescribing in acute pain. She was part of the HSE (Health Service Executive of Ireland) working group for prescribing opioids for acute non-cancer pain. She is currently the FPM board representative on the HSE working group for codeine. Amy was part of the multidisciplinary team involved in the BPS/IPS patient information leaflet on Managing Pain after Surgery.  

Felicia Cox, FRCN, is a nurse consultant in pain management. She is a past chair of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Pain and Palliative Care Forum and is a co-opted member of the Council of the British Pain Society. She is a committee member of the EFIC Covid Task Force and EFIC Research Strategy group, the IASP Acute Pain Special Interest Group, and a founding member of the Pain Nurse Network. She is the co-editor of the British Journal of Pain. The breadth of her pain-related publications spans the continuum from the Daily Telegraph to The Lancet with systematic reviews, chapters, and books in between. She has also co-authored e-learning modules on pain and medicine safety, and has contributed to several Family Practice Management publications. She is an honorary lecturer at King’s College London, UK, and has been awarded honorary membership of the British Pain Society and Fellowship of the RCN for her services to pain. Her clinical and research interests include chronic postsurgical pain and procedural pain, and enjoys supporting novice authors to publish and disseminate their work.