Dr. Davis is a senior scientist at the Krembil Brain Institute (University Health Network) and professor at the University of Toronto. Dr. Davis chaired the IASP presidential task force on the use of brain imaging to diagnosis pain and was co-editor of book Pain Neuroethics and Bioethics. She has served on the IASP Council, was a Mayday Fellow, was inducted into the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars, Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, the Royal Society of Canada, and is a past President of the Canadian Pain Society. Dr. Davis currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of PAIN.

Dr. Tonya Palermo is Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at University of Washington and directs an interdisciplinary research center at Seattle Children’s Research Institute dedicated to advancing child and family health. Dr. Palermo has been in Seattle since 2010 where she leads the Pediatric Pain & Sleep Innovations Lab. She is a clinical pediatric psychologist. The focus of her research is on behavioral, psychosocial and family factors that affect pain experiences, the interrelationship of sleep and pain, and innovative psychological treatments for managing and preventing chronic pain. Currently, Dr. Palermo serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Pain. 

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.

Dr. Meissner is a professor of Integrative Medicine at Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Germany. Her research bridges placebo science, psychobiology, and mind-body interventions, with a particular focus on the contextual and embodied mechanisms of healing. Meissner's work investigates how expectation, interoception, and body-based practices influence physiological and psychological outcomes in conditions such as pain, nausea, and appetite regulation. Her studies include experimental and clinical trials on open-label placebos, somatic placebo interventions, and psychobiological sex differences in placebo responses. With more than 100 publications, Meissner's work promotes an integrative, evidence-based understanding of how mind and body interact in healing.

Luana Colloca is an NIH-funded physician-scientist who conducted ground-breaking studies that have advanced scientific understanding of the psychoneurobiological bases of endogenous systems for pain modulation in humans including the discovery that the vasopressin system is involved in the enhancement of placebo effects with a dimorphic effect. Currently, her team conducts basic and translational research on genomics of orofacial chronic pain, brain mechanisms of expectancy - and observationally-induced hypoalgesia - and immersive virtual reality. Her research has been published in top-ranked international journals including Biological Psychiatry, Pain, Nature Neuroscience, JAMA, Lancet Neurology, Science and NEJM. The impact of her innovative work is clear from her outstanding publications, citation rate, numerous invited lectures worldwide and media featured by The National Geographic, The New Scientist, Washington Post, Boston Globe, The New Yorker, Nature, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, News and World Reports.