Speakers

Syed Z. Ali, MD, FRCPath, FIAC
Dr. Ali serves as Professor of Pathology and Radiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as well as the Director of the Division of Cytopathology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. He received his Pathology residency training at North Shore University Hospital/Cornell University in New York with fellowships in Oncologic Surgical Pathology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and Cytopathology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
Known globally as an innovative educator, Dr. Ali has well over 350 invited lectures, keynote speeches and visiting professorships all over the world. In collaboration with international societies and universities, he directs or co-directs several annual major cytopathology tutorials. 
Dr. Ali has published extensively with over 330 peer-reviewed articles in major scientific journals, over 35 books, book chapters and electronic media. Known for his expertise in “Thyroid” and “Pancreatic” cytopathology, his monograph on “The Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Cytopathology” (now in its 3rd edition) has been translated in 8 languages and is extensively used in medical practice all over the world. He is the founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Society of Cytopathology (JASC) and has served as member of the executive board and chair of the scientific program and several other key committees of the American Society of Cytopathology (ASC). He is a past-President of the ASC, President-elect of the International Academy of Cytology (IAC) and chair of the International Board of Cytopathology of the IAC. He is a fellow of both the Royal College of Pathologists (UK) and the IAC. He is recipient of the ASC’s “Warren R. Lang Award” in 1996, “President’s Award” in 2012, “Excellence in Education Award” in 2015, the IAC’s “Maurice Goldblatt Award” in 2019, Papanicolaou Society of Cytopathology’s “LC Tao Educator of the Year Award” in 2022 and the ASC’s “Papanicolaou Award” in 2023.

Dina R. Mody, M.D.
Dr. Mody is the medical director of the cytopathology laboratory at Houston’s Methodist Hospital and was the Cytopathology Fellowship program director till June 2017. She is professor of Pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and adjunct professor at Texas A&M University. She was also the medical director of Bioreference/GenPath cytology lab in Texas for 12 years till July 2022.
Dr. Mody is a past president of American Society of Cytopathology (ASC) in 2007-08 and has been a member of the executive board of the ASC. She has received the Papanicolaou Award, the President's Award and Excellence in Education award from that society.
Her participation with the College of American Pathologists (CAP) has also been extensive, including chairing the cytopathology resource committee and Anatomic Pathology cluster and other activities, for which she has received the Lansky Award for her leadership in cytopathology in 2002, and the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 and the Jean and Gene Herbek Humanitarian award in 2019. She also received the Harlan J Spjut award of the Houston Society of Clinical Pathologists and several years of residents and fellows teaching awards. In January 2019 she received the John J Andujar citation of merit award from Texas Society of Pathologists. On Feb 1 2019 she was awarded the first Shobha Grover Oration medal/award of the Indian Academy of Cytologists, Maharashtra chapter at its Annual meeting in Mumbai. In 2024 she received the Dr Tao Educator award from the Papanicolaou society of Cytopathology at the USCAP meeting.
Dr. Mody is board certified in anatomic and clinical pathology with subspecialty certification in cytopathology.
She finished two terms as the editor in chief of the Journal of The American Society of Cytopathology (2017-2022) and is on the editorial boards of several cytology and pathology journals and was on the cytopathology question writing committee of the American Board of Pathology (2011-2017).  She chaired the Scientific program Committee of the American Society of Cytopathology from 2012-2014 which is responsible for the three annual scientific meetings. She was also the invited Speaker for the International Academy of Cytology Tutorials from 2015-2019 and has lectured on topics of cancer diagnosis by cytology and small biopsies and HPV testing. She co directs the biennial Cytopathology and small biopsy update in the Texas medical center which is held at Houston Methodist in Feb or March.
Dr. Mody has over 125 peer reviewed publications and over 250 presentations, abstracts and invited lectures at loco regional, national and international level. In March 2014, she published a comprehensive 800 page cytopathology text book: Diagnostic Pathology Cytopathology by Amirsys (now Elsevier), which, in its 2nd edition (2018) was selected by the British Medical Association Awards committee as the top 5 books in Pathology and was a finalist for the best book award in 2018. The 3rd edition of the book was published in September 2022. She has also coedited the 3rd edition of Clinical Cytopathology, published in Nov 2017 with her mentor, Dr Ramzy.

Assoc. prof. Danijela Vrdoljak-Mozetič, MD, PhD, M.I.A.C.
Danijela Vrdoljak-Mozetič graduated from The Faculty of Medicine of the University of Rijeka, Croatia in 1991. In 1996 she became a Specialist in Clinical Cytology. She is working in Clinical Hospital Centre Rijeka, currently at the position of the Head of Department of Pathology and Cytology. As associate professor she participates in teaching pathology and cytology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Rijeka. She is a member of the Working groups for specialist training in pathology and cytology, national programme for cervical screening and guidelines. From 2014-2021 she was the president of Croatian Society for Clinical Cytology of Croatian Medical Association. Since 2018 she was the chair of Educational Committee of the European Federation of Cytology Societies (EFCS), and in 2021 she became EFCS Secretary General. She has published more than forty papers and participated in many conferences. Special fields of interest: gynaecological cytology, cervical screening, HPV testing, endometrial cytology, vulvar and anal cytology, ovarian cytology, head and neck, effusion, pulmonary and urinary cytology, education in cytopathology.

Momin T. Siddiqui MD., FIAC.
Dr. Momin T. Siddiqui is a Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Weill-Cornell in New York. He currently, also serves as the Medical Director of the Papanicolaou Cytopathology Laboratory at Cornell and also directing the cytopathology fellowship program. Dr. Siddiqui is currently serving as the President of the American Society of Cytopathology. He has also served on numerous national and international pathology organizational executive boards and committees in the last two decades. In addition, he has represented and advocated for the cytopathology community/interests by serving on various committee assignments with the American Board of Pathology, Papanicolaou Society of Cytopathology and the American Society of Clinical Pathology to name a few.
Dr Siddiqui’s professional career has been focused on education, teaching and research. He has published over 160 peer-reviewed papers and co-authored books as well as book chapters. His current research interests include validation and usage of molecular and immunocytochemical markers in cytologic samples and digitization of cytologic specimens. Dr Siddiqui is also a member of numerous editorial boards/editorships, including the Journal of American Society of Cytopathology, Acta Cytologica, Diagnostic Cytopathology, Cancer Cytopathology and Cytopathology. He has also been recognized for teaching workshops and giving lectures internationally.

Dinka Šundov, MD, PhD
Dinka Šundov is a senior consultant and Head of the Clinical Cytology Unit, Department of Pathology, Forensic Medicine and Cytology at the University Hospital Split. She is an assistant professor at the University of Split, School of Medicine, in three university study programs (Medicine, Dental Medicine and Medical Studies in English), postgraduate study program Biology of Neoplasms and teaching program at the University of Split, University Department of Health Studies (Medical Laboratory Diagnostics). She was also a member of a working group for the National Program for Cervical Cancer Screening. Dr Sundov's areas of professional and scientific interest are guided FNAs and thyroid lesions, gynecological and lung cytopathology, hematology, ancillary techniques and digital analysis. She was a speaker at several international congresses, a member of organizing and scientific committees of several Croatian clinical cytology congresses and Joint national meeting of Croatian Societies for Pathology and Clinical Cytology with international attendance. Dr Sundov has published 14 peer-reviewed articles and is a co-author in Chapter 11 of  “The Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Cytopathology (3rd edition)“. She received a Certificate of Appreciation from the Croatian Medical Association for her professional work. Dr Sundov has been the president of the Croatian Society of Clinical Cytology since 2022.

Peter Bela Illei, M.D., Associate Professor of Pathology
Dr. Illei is an Associate Professor of Pathology and Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (Peter Bela Illei, M.D., Associate Professor of Pathology | Johns Hopkins Medicine). He is a member of the Division of Cytopathology and the Director of the Thoracic Pathology Consult Service. His main interest is Pathology and Cytopathology of Thoracic neoplasms and the use of ancillary techniques for diagnosis and the use and development of tumor biomarkers. Dr. Illei has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=illei+p), has presented at numerous national and international conferences, workshops and webinars. He is a member of the editorial board of three journals and regular reviewer of over a dozen peer-reviewed publications. He is currently member of the Product Innovation Committee and a former member of the Clinical Practice Committee of the American Society of Cytopathology.

Tajana Štoos-Veić, MD., PhD, MIAC
Tajana Štoos-Veić, MIAC, MD, PhD, is a senior consultant and a Head of Cytology of The Department of Pathology and Cytology at University Hospital Dubrava, Assistant professor at the Faculty of Medicine of University of Osijek and she also teaches several postgraduate courses at University of Zagreb School of Medicine. Dr. Štoos-Veić is especially interested in pancreatobiliary and gastrointestinal cytology and also of cytomorphology and guided FNAs of other deep-seated organs. She also has interest in haematological cytology (lymph nodes and bone marrow aspirates). Dr. Štoos-Veić has authored and co-authored 44 articles in peer-reviewed journals, two book chapters, and also a chapter in “The WHO Reporting System for Pancreatobiliary Cytology”, IARC/IAC, Lyon, published in 2022. She reviews for Diagnostic Cytopathology, Cytopathology and World Journal of Gastroenterology, and serves as a board member on “Cytopathology”, Journal of British Society of Cytopathology. She was a speaker on numerous international congresses, workshops and slide seminars, has organized two workshops of pancreatobiliary cytomorphology held in University Hospital Dubrava in Zagreb and was a member of the organizing committee and a speaker at “The 2019 Croatian Society of Clinical Cytology (CSCC) and American Society of Cytopathology (ASC) Joint Cytopathology Workshop”, held in September 2019 in Zagreb, Croatia. She also chaired a microscopic session “FNA of Mediastinal and Abdominal Deep-seated Lesions” at Joint Congress of American Society of Cytopathology (ASC) and International Academy of Cytology (IAC) held in Baltimore, USA, in 2022, and a workshop on pancreatobiliary cytology at 14th EFCS Tutorial (European Federation of Cytology Societies) held in Toulouse, France, in 2023. Currently dr. Štoos-Veić is a vice-president of Croatian Society of Clinical Cytology, MIAC (Member of International Academy of Cytology), and holds a membership in Croatian Society of Gastroenterology, European Association for Hematopathology and European Society of Pathology.