2026 Meet the Speakers: ADAO Conference Session II — Asbestos Prevention and Health Impacts: Risks, Diagnosis, and Advances in Treatment

Register Today | Conference Details | “Meet the Speakers & Honorees” 7-Week Series 

Posted on August 3, 2026

ADAO is proud to launch our 2026 “Meet the Speakers & Honorees” seven-week blog series celebrating ADAO’s 21st Annual Asbestos Awareness and Prevention Conference, September 25–26, 2026, in Arlington, VA. Each week, we’ll introduce the remarkable speakers, honorees, sponsors, and ADAO leaders whose expertise, leadership, and dedication make this conference possible.

We are grateful for their generosity in sharing their time, knowledge, and passion with our community. Together, they continue to advance science, strengthen public policy, support patients and families, and move us closer to a future free from asbestos-related disease.

Speaker information for Session II — Asbestos Prevention and Health Impacts: Risks, Diagnosis, and Advances in Treatment

Jacqueline M. Moline, MD, MSc — Twenty-Five Years After 9/11: The Evolving Landscape of Asbestos-Related Disease

Jacqueline M. Moline, MD, MSc is an Occupational Medicine specialist and Professor of Occupational Medicine, Epidemiology and Prevention and Internal Medicine at Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine. She obtained her medical degree from the Pritzker School of Medicine of the University of Chicago. She completed residencies in Internal Medicine at Yale University and Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where she obtained her Masters of Science degree. She is the former Director of the NIOSH-funded New York/New Jersey Education and Research Center in Occupational Safety and Health.

After 19 years on the Mount Sinai School of Medicine faculty, she joined Northwell Health as the founding Chairperson of the Department of Occupational Medicine, Epidemiology and Prevention.

Dr. Moline maintains a clinical practice, focusing on patients with occupational exposures such as asbestos. Since 2001, many of Dr. Moline’s endeavors have been centered on the medical evaluation and treatment of World Trade Center (WTC) responders. She is the director of the Northwell World Trade Center Clinical Center, and has been honored to be a part of the WTC program for 25 years. 

Libby Brow — Warrior Perspective: Living with an Asbestos-Caused Disease

Libby Brow became involved with ADAO after her 28-year-old son, Felix, was diagnosed with biphasic pleural mesothelioma in 2017. During his year of treatment, she gained firsthand knowledge of cancer care, the healthcare system, caregiving, and patient advocacy. Through ADAO, Felix connected with other mesothelioma warriors, including the late Mike Mattmuller, whom he met at ADAO’s 2018 conference in Washington, D.C.

Following Felix’s death, Libby supported family members and friends through grief and worked as a caregiver for a woman with dementia. She later transformed her grief into Felixology, a memorial bookshop in Massachusetts offering books, gifts, and art. Opened in 2024, Felixology honors Felix’s spirit while providing a welcoming community space. The shop hosts monthly Death Cafés and Grief Cafés to support open conversations about death, dying, and bereavement. A recent Fold-A-Thon for Felix raised ADAO awareness and collected 1,022 origami cranes.

Steven Markowitz, MD, DrPH — Earlier Detection Matters: Advances, Biomarkers, and the Future of Mesothelioma Diagnosis

Steven Markowitz, MD, DrPH is an occupational medicine physician and epidemiologist, directs the Barry Commoner Center for Health and the Environment at Queens College, City University of New York and is a member of the ADAO Science Advisory Board. He is Adjunct Professor of Environmental Medicine and Climate Science at Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai. He was educated at Yale University (BA) and Columbia University (MD and DrPH in epidemiology) and trained in internal medicine (Montefiore Medical Center) and occupational medicine (Mt. Sinai School of Medicine). With the United Steelworkers union, Dr. Markowitz has directed the largest occupational lung cancer screening program in the United States (Worker Health Protection Program), using low-dose CT scanning to screen over 14,000 Department of Energy nuclear weapons workers for early lung cancer since 2000. Dr. Markowitz served for 12 years as Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine and was the Associate Editor of a major textbook, Environmental and Occupational Medicine, 4th Edition. He serves or has served on Federal EPA, NIOSH, NTP, and DOL Committees and Boards.”

Christine Oliver, MD, MPH, MS — Malignant Mesothelioma Risk in Women: Overlooked and Underrecognized

Christine Oliver, MD, MPH, MSc is an adjunct professor in the Occupational and Environmental Health Division of the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health in Toronto, ON. She is a medical consultant to the Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers (OHCOW), Inc. Dr. Oliver was formerly an associate clinical professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a member of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Division of the Department of Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Her primary specialty is occupational and environmental medicine, with an emphasis on occupational lung disease. She has taught, done research, and published in the area of occupational lung disease, including asbestos-related disease.  Dr. Oliver is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) and a Fellow of the Collegium Ramazzini. She has testified before Congress and OSHA on issues related to asbestos and other respiratory toxins. She has offered expert testimony on behalf of injured and ill workers with asbestos-related disease.

Andrea Wolf, MD, MPH — Mesothelioma in 2026: Advances in Surgery and Multidisciplinary Care

Andrea Wolf, MD, MPH, is Director of the NY Mesothelioma Program and Professor of Thoracic Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

She graduated Cum Laude from Princeton and earned her MD and MPH from Harvard University, before training in general surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital and cardiothoracic surgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital before assuming her current role as attending surgeon at Mount Sinai in New York. 

She has expertise in surgery for pleural mesothelioma and VATS lobectomy and research interests in mesothelioma, health care disparities, and lung cancer. She is the Chair of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery Wellness Committee, and has served as medical director for 3 elite marathons, in which the women’s winner went to the Paris Olympics in 2024 and one man broke the Austrian National Record.

She and her team at the NY Mesothelioma Program received the 2020 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer Care Team Award. The ADAO awarded Dr. Wolf the Irving J. Selikoff Award in 2022.

She has presented at numerous national and international meetings, is co-editor of the third and upcoming fourth editions of Sugarbaker’s Adult Chest Surgery and has published extensively on pleural mesothelioma and lung cancer. She has one son and loves to run.

Liz Darlison — Beyond Treatment: Advancing Patient Care, Survivorship, and Quality of Life

Liz Darlison has enjoyed over 40 years of clinical practice at the University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL). In response to patient need, in 2004 Liz established Mesothelioma UK, a national charity for mesothelioma. 

Currently she is a Consultant Nurse at UHL and is also CEO at Mesothelioma UK.  Liz has Honorary university positions in both Leicester and Sheffield, she is passionate about improving experience and outcomes through clinically based research, keenly promotes the NHS and nursing as a career and engages in education and training on many levels. 

In the 2019 Queen Elizabeth’s Birthday honours list, Liz was invited to become a Member of the British Empire (MBE) in recognition of her services to patients and cancer research and in May 2024 she was appointed as a Deputy Lieutenant for Leicestershire.

Dan Whu, MD, MPH, FACPM, FAAMA, ABOIM, DNBPAS, PMD-T — Keynote Speaker

Dan Whu, MD, MPH, FACPM, FAAMA, ABOIM, DNBPAS, PMD-T, currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer for the International Association of Fire Fighters, which represents nearly 370,000 professional fire fighters and paramedics. He is also a Founding Member and a Senior Disaster Physician & Medical Team Manager for FEMA’s Urban Search & Rescue (USAR), Florida Task Force – 1 and has deployed to national and international search & rescue missions to many major disasters, including 9/11, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the Haiti earthquake that killed nearly a quarter of a million people, Hurricane Maria that decimated Puerto Rico, and the condominium collapse in Miami Beach. In addition, he is a retired Division Chief of Fire, Rescue & EMS Operations at Miami-Dade County (FL) Fire & Rescue Department, Assistant Chief of the Miami-Dade County Department of Emergency Management & Homeland Security, and Deputy Incident Commander of the Miami-Dade County Emergency Operations Center. He continues to share his experience and expertise as an advisory board member at numerous academic, research and clinical organizations in both, public and private sectors. Altogether, Dr. Whu is in his 41st year as an emergency first responder and continues to be passionate about improving the health, safety, and wellbeing of all his fellow firefighters and paramedics.

Arthur Frank — Session Moderator 

Arthur L. Frank, MD, PhD is a physician board certified in both internal medicine and occupational medicine and currently serves as a clinical Professor of Public Health and Professor and Chair Emeritus of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Drexel University School of Public Health in Philadelphia. He is also a Professor of Medicine (Pulmonary) at the Drexel College of Medicine. He also holds a position at Drexel as Professor of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering.

A life-long academic, Dr. Frank has previously taught at Mount Sinai, the University of Kentucky and in the University of Texas System. He has served many governmental agencies in the US and has carried out research and has been a governmental advisor internationally. He has been interested in the health hazards of asbestos for more than 50 years.

He has published extensively on the hazards of asbestos, and clinically cared for asbestos-affected patients. He has lectured internationally about the problems of asbestos and worked in many settings looking at the diseases caused by this material. His research interests have been in the areas of occupational cancers and occupational lung diseases, as well as agricultural safety and health.

For thirty-seven years, he held a commission in the U S Public Health Service (active and inactive) and served on active duty both at the NIH and at NIOSH.

Tune in next week for Session III’s speakers. Register today and join the movement towards an asbestos-free future. 

Official ADAO Asbestos Awareness and Prevention Conference Sponsors: