ASA Elections 2025

Peter Liu, MBBS, PhD, FRACP

Biography

Professor of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Endocrinologist and Senior Investigator, The Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

Personal Statement: I understand the challenges facing Andrology worldwide and possess contemporaneous knowledge of the workings of the American Society of Andrology (ASA) through service on many of its standing committees As the current president of the International Society of Andrology (ISA), I have worked closely with the immediate past president and current president of the ASA to program the 50th scientific meeting of the ASA/13th quadrennial congress of the ISA. I am well positioned to ensure that the ASA continues to be the home for fundamental scientists, clinical researchers, clinicians, and clinical scientists interested in men’s health since I am an endocrinologist and a physician scientist. I have expanded the field of Andrology into understanding how disturbed sleep and circadian misalignment affect men’s health through a translational research program that has received federal funding continuously in Australia and USA.

American Society of Andrology: joined in 2005. Director (2015-18). Chair or co-chair of Trainee Affairs (2011-15), Bylaws and Constitution (2015-17 and 2019-20), Membership (2017-18). Member of diversity committee, nominating committee, international liaison committee, basic science workshop, joint meeting ad hoc committee (various years). Highlights of committee accomplishments: inaugurated the Trainee-directed symposium; comprehensively reviewed and updated the current Constitution and Bylaws. Young Andrologist (2010).

International Society of Andrology. President (2021-25). Secretary (2017-21). International Young Andrologist (2013).

Other International/National Leadership: Assistant secretary, World Sleep Federation; Temporary advisor, World Health Organization; Chair, International Seminar Series, Endocrine Society; Member, Research Committee, Endocrine Society; Member, Trainee Committee, Endocrine Society.

James Smith, MD, MS

Biography

Dr. Smith graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in molecular biology and subsequently matriculated from UCSF, earning a master's degree in 2000 (UC Berkeley) and a medical degree in 2002 (UCSF). After completing a general surgery internship and urology residency at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and a UCSF Andrology fellowship from 2007-2009, Dr. Smith joined the UCSF Urology faculty and became Director of Male Reproductive Health, ultimately achieving the rank of Professor in Residence. Since 2023, Dr. Smith splits his time between Professor of Urology at UCSF and Chief Medical Officer of Fellow Health.

At the national leadership level, Dr. Smith seeks to build collaboration within the reproductive field. He has served a term as Director on the ASA board, was Co-Chair of the 2021 ASA national meeting, and is currently serving a 2nd term as Director. He is Past President of the Society for Study of Male Reproduction (SSMR) and serves on the SSMR fellowship match committee. He is Past President of the Society for Male Reproduction and Urology (SMRU) and Past Chair of ASRM’s Fertility Preservation Special Interest Group. Dr. Smith loves collaborating with trainees, clinicians, scientists, patient advocates, other reproductive society groups, and biotech partners to solve complex clinical, research, and public policy challenges.

Alan B. Diekman, PhD

Biography

Alan Diekman received his PhD.from Northwestern University. He performed his dissertation research in the laboratory of Erv Goldberg, Ph.D. He subsequently performed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Virginia in the laboratory of John Herr, Ph.D. Dr. Diekman is currently a Professor in the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Biomedical Sciences with faculty appointments in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Department of Urology.

Statement

I am deeply committed to the continued growth of the ASA as a vibrant and viable society. I joined the ASA as an Active member in 2003 after being a Trainee member, and I became a Life Member in 2021. I have served in elected offices as Treasurer (2020-2023) and member of the Board of Directors (2013-2015). As Treasurer, I participated in co-authoring the 2021 5-year strategic plan. I chaired the Membership Committee (2006-2017), the Finance Committee (2017-2020), and the Search Committee for a new association management company (2017-2019). Other committee service has included Trainee Affairs; Endowment and Development; Awards; Future Events; Program; Basic Science Workshop; and Diversity, and I am currently on the Editorial Board of Andrology. To continue as a viable Society, we must strategically manage our finances and continue to grow our membership. I am excited about the resources available through our continued partnerships with our association management company and the Cleveland Foundation that will further ASA’s growth and sustainability. As Treasurer, my priorities would be to find ways to improve revenue from the annual meeting, fundraising, and new revenue sources.

Jennifer Hughes, PhD

Biography

Jennifer Hughes, PhD has been a member of the ASA since 2012. She served as trainee representative from 2018-2021. She then served on the Board of Directors from 2021-2023.  She has also served on Women in Andrology Committee, Membership Committee and the Trainee Affairs Committee. Jennifer works for a livestock semen extender company, Membrane Protective Technologies in Fort Collins, CO.

Alexander Pastuszak, MD, PhD

Biography

Alex is a urologist, scientist, and serial entrepreneur, with over 15 years in healthcare and biotechnology.  He received his BS from Yale University and his MD and PhD from the University of California, San Francisco.  Alex completed his residency and fellowship training in male reproductive medicine and surgery at Baylor College of Medicine, and started his career as an academic physician-scientist, spending more time ins startups and growth companies over the last decade and balancing an academic and “industry” career.  Alex’s clinical and NIH-funded basic research focus as faculty at the University of Utah is in men’s sexual and reproductive health, and his entrepreneurial work has encompassed healthcare technology, diagnostics, medical devices, clinical research, and medical innovation.  Alex has had founding and executive operational roles at multiple companies, with several exits to date. 

Hooman Sadri, MD, PhD

Associate Professor Departments of Urology, Pediatrics, Pathology and Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist. Director, Male Fertility Research Program, Wake Forest University, Winston Salem, NC, United States

Background

Dr. Hooman Sadri is currently practicing as a male reproduction specialist at the Department of Urology at Wake Forest School of Medicine and the Carolinas Fertility Institute (CFI) in Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. A former Research Scholar of the American Urological Association (2017-19), Dr. Sadri’s translational research focuses on the dynamics of male germ lineage development to establish the pool of Spermatogonia Stem Cell (SSC) and the mechanisms that regulate SSC self-renewal and differentiation. His research on the development of a three-dimensional human testis organoid (HTO) system led to a research article that was selected as the best publication of the year (2017) by the Society for the Study of Reproduction (SSR). Dr. Sadri’s lab also investigates the feasibility and safety of SSC transplantation or In Vitro Differentiation as a treatment for male infertility. In 2014, Dr. Sadri established the Wake Forest testicular tissue banking for boys and men at risk of infertility, which is currently one of the three major SSC banks in the United States. His clinic is presently part of AXYS (Association for X and Y Variations) Clinic and Research Consortium (ACRC), serving patients with Klinefelter Syndrome and other genetic variations that affect fertility. His lab provides the only clinical trial in the US offering round spermatid injection (ROSI).

ASA Statement

Dr. Sadri has been an active ASA member since 2012 and has served as the co-chair of the Diversity Committee (2013-2020), co-chair of the ASA annual ASA meeting (Boston 2023), and director of the ASA board (2021-2024). In these capacities, Hooman has worked closely with several committees and members of the Society as his primary professional organization. He has a great passion and a deep commitment to the ASA. As a physician-scientist working in the multidisciplinary area of male reproduction and andrology, Hooman believes in the importance of all members’ participation from various clinical and research backgrounds for the ASA to become a leading organization in andrology.

Janette Dufour, PhD

Biography

Dr. Jannette M. Dufour is a University Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Cell Biology and Biochemistry in the School of Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and Associate Director of the Obesity Research Institute. She received her PhD in Genetics and Cell Biology from Washington State University in 1999 and trained as a postdoctoral fellow with the Islet Transplantation Group in the Surgical Medical Research Institute, Department of Surgery at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada from 1999-2005. The focus of her research is to explore the therapeutic potential of immune privileged Sertoli cells as a means to improve outcomes of transplantation. Specifically, her lab is testing the feasibility of using immune privileged Sertoli cells for cell-based gene therapy and examining the mechanism(s) of Sertoli cell immune protection in order to improve survival of insulin-expressing cells as a treatment for diabetes. She also has several collaborations with investigators at TTUHSC and TTU related to the role of bioactive compounds for the treatment of diabetes. Her research has been funded by several national and local agencies including the NIH, American Diabetes Association, the Robert A. Welch Foundation, The Jasper L. and Jack Denton Wilson Foundation, and Ted Nash Long Life Foundation, and has been selected for the cover photo for Cell Transplantation (2008), Spermatogenesis (2012), DNA and Cell Biology (2018), and Biomedicines (2023), and highlighted in Biology of Reproduction (2014) and Nature Medicine (2018). She has been invited to give seminars at several universities as well as at national and international meetings, including American Society of Andrology (ASA; 2007, 2016, 2023), the American Society for Reproductive Immunology (2022, 2024), Society for the Study of Reproduction; 2012, 2016), NIAID (2017) and NIEHS (2017). She has received the TTUHSC President's Young Investigator Award (2011), the Outstanding Women Leader (OWL) Award from the West Texas Association for Women in Science (2013), the Harry M. Weitlauf Anatomy Teaching Award (2013), the Dean's Basic Science Teaching Award (2017, 2024), the President's Team Teaching Award (2019, 2020), and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Dean’s Teaching Award (2023). 

Ralph Meyer, PhD

Biography

Ralph Meyer received his PhD from the University of Kaiserslautern for his research at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Germany, and completed postdoctoral training in radiobiology and molecular toxicology at the University of Tübingen, well as in pharmacology and toxicology at the College of Pharmacy, University of Arizona. He served on the faculty of the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania before joining the School of Veterinary Medicine at Utah State University (USU). He currently serves as head of the Veterinary Clinical and Life Sciences Department of the new College of Veterinary Medicine at USU. His research is focused on spermatogenesis, germline epigenetics and male reproductive toxicology. Ralph has been a member of the American Society of Andrology since 2007, in which he has served on numerous program committees for ASA and testis Workshop meetings, the ASA Basic Science Workshop committee, and currently chairs the Archive and History Committee.

Martine Culty, PhD

Biography

Dr. Martine Culty, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern California, USA. She was previously faculty at McGill University, Canada, and Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA. Her research focuses on male germ cell development and studying the impact of low dose mixtures of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), acetaminophen and ibuprofen on testis development and function, in relation to infertility and testicular cancer. Dr. Culty has published numerous research articles and reviews and presented her work in several institutions and meetings. Her work has been supported by grants and contracts from USA and Canada. She was recently appointed to serve in a toxicology committee of the California Environmental Protection Agency. She has been an active member of the American Society of Andrology for many years, serving in the BOD for 3 years, serving as member and Chair of several committees, and co-Chairing the 48th ASA Annual Meeting in Boston in 2023.

Marie-Claude Hofmann, PhD

Biography

Dr. Marie-Claude Hofmann has been Professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas since 2012. She holds a B.S. degree in Cell Biology from the University of Lausanne and a joint Ph.D. degree in Stem Cell and Cancer Biology from the Universities of Zürich and Lausanne, Switzerland. She did her postdoctoral studies in Developmental and Reproductive Biology at the Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Institute in La Jolla, California, under the mentorship of Dr. José Luis Millán. She then established her own research laboratory as an Assistant Professor at the University of Dayton, Ohio, before moving to the University of Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, as an Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Biosciences.

Dr. Hofmann's primary research focus encompasses unraveling signaling pathways involved in normal tissue development with the objective of understanding how their dysregulations lead to male infertility and cancer. She established testicular germ cell and somatic cell lines that are vital to in vitro toxicity testing. Her work has dissected the crucial role of the GDNF/RET signaling pathway and the NOTCH pathway in germline stem cell self-renewal and differentiation. She studies emerging toxicants and explored their effects on spermatogonia proliferation. She is presently studying the role of the p38 pathway in acquired resistance to BRAF inhibitors and immunotherapies in thyroid cancer. Dr. Hofmann has authored or co-authored more than 100 scientific articles, several of those published in high impact journals, such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Molecular Cancer Research, Cancers, Frontiers in Endocrinology, and others. She has held continuous funding from the NIH. She has trained many undergraduates, graduates and postdoctoral trainees in the field of reproductive biology and cancer research, and she is well recognised for mentoring of trainees. Dr. Hofmann has served the scientific community in the field of Andrology through her work on committees of the ASA and Society for the Study of Reproduction, and as long-time NIH CMIR study section member. Notably, Dr. Hofmann was Deputy Editor, then Editor-in-Chief of Andrology (2020-2024) when the impact factor and number of submissions rose tremendously.

In recognition of her career-long scientific contributions and her leadership and activities to building and enriching our discipline, Dr. Marie-Claude Hofmann received the ASA highest honor, the Distinguished Andrologist Award.

Stephanie Page, MD, PhD

Biography

Dr. Page is Head of the Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition at the University of Washington, where she holds the Robert B. McMillen Professorship in Lipid Research and founding Director of the UW Medicine Diabetes Institute.

Dr. Page’s clinical research program focuses on male reproduction and the development of effective and reversible male hormonal contraceptives. In addition, her group investigates the impact of testosterone on male aging, metabolic health, and disease risk. She has an overall interest in disease prevention, including strategies to minimize unplanned pregnancy and cardiovascular disease risk across the globe. Dr. Page’s research program benefits from an enthusiastic group of trainees and her work as a mentor is deeply rewarding.

Dr. Page has been a member of the American Society of Andrology for over 20 years and been active in a variety of positions including as a Board Member, Awards Committee Member and former president of Women in Andrology. The ASA is critical to advancing research and training in Andrology and I hope to continue to serve the Society.

Pablo Visconti, PhD

Biography

I received my PhD in Chemistry from the University of Buenos Aires in 1991 studying sperm signalling pathways. I did my postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Dr. Gregory Kopf at the University of Pennsylvania in the same topic. As part of my postdoctoral work I made the observation that sperm capacitation is associated with the increase in tyrosine phosphorylation. I am now Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences. My research continues to focus in the study of the molecular basis of capacitation and have started to investigate ways to manipulate the capacitation process for translational purposes. Recently we discovered that manipulation of sperm calcium and metabolism during capacitation can increase the efficiency of in vitro fertilization and embryo development. As part of my laboratory interests, we also investigate the biology of testes specific kinases and proposed that these kinases can be used as targets for male contraception. Our research in fertilization and contraception is funded by NIH. In 2013, I served as Chair of the Gordon Conference on Fertilization and Activation of Development.

As member of the ASA, I have served in several committees including the Diversity, the Awards and the Annual Meeting Program Committee. At present, I am co-chair of the Diversity Committee with Dr. Carolina Jorgez and I am also member of the Awards committee.

Shweta Bhagwat, PhD

Biography

Shweta Bhagwat completed her Bachelor’s in Biotechnology in 2005 and her Master’s degree in Biomedical Genetics in 2007. After graduation, she started her career in research and was driven towards understanding the functionally active proteins responsible for sperm motility. With a small break in her career for nurturing her new-born, she resumed her research pursuits and began her Ph.D. at IIT-B in collaboration with ICMR-NIRRH in Mumbai, India. Her Ph.D. was focussed on understanding sperm chemotaxis and the associated calcium dynamics, in response to female oviductal factors, using a novel microfluidic device. While focusing her research on sperm chemotaxis, she was also fascinated to learn the molecular mechanisms of sperm motility regulation in the female tract, specifically the changes in sperm movement pattern due to capacitation. Currently she is pursuing her post-doc in sperm physiology at the Santi lab, at the Washington University in Saint Louis, USA.

In parallel to her experimental work, and as a female international student, she is actively involved in numerous leadership positions, advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as well as inspiring individuals to follow their scientific dreams. She is a trainee member of the American Society of Andrology (ASA) Diversity as well as Women in Andrology committees. She also had the opportunity to be involved in the Washington University’s Division of Biology & Biomedical Sciences WiSTEM - Ask a Scientist Initiative at the Rosati-Kain Girls High School, in Saint Louis. Apart from this, she was also elected by her peers, as one of the co-chairs for the 2025 Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) at the Gordon Research Conference. At the GRS, she is currently involved in the planning and execution of a two-day seminar for trainees that provides a unique forum for young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers to present their work, as well as provide them with opportunities to explore various career options. In near future, she plans to continue organizing scientific and DEI events to raise awareness about the challenges and inequalities faced by women and minorities in academia. Shweta is eager to make a positive impact as a Trainee Representative of the ASA committee.

Larissa Chiba, BSc

Biography

Hello! My name is Larissa Namie Chiba, and I am currently completing my master's degree at University of São Paulo, Brazil, under the supervision of Dr. Jorge Hallak. My research focuses on investigating the impact of melatonin on human semen following cryopreservation using the slow freezing method, including sperm functional tests and seminal analyses. I am also excited to begin my Ph.D. with Dr. Clémence Belleannée's team at Université Laval in Québec, Canada. In addition to my academic studies, I work as an andrologist at Androscience – Science & Innovation Center in Andrology. I first attended the ASA conference in 2021, and since then, I have participated in every meeting. I am currently serving as a trainee member of the Communications and Public Affairs Committee. Beyond my academic pursuits, I am proactive and passionate about meeting new people! It would be an honor to serve as Junior Trainee Representative, and I hope to contribute to organizing the trainee mixer to welcome and foster greater integration among trainees from diverse countries.

Maria Camila Hoyos Sanchez, BS, MD, MSc

Biography

My name is Maria Camila Hoyos, I am in my second year as a PhD student at Texas Tech University in Dr. Klementina Fon Tacer Lab. I am studying the effect of stress on spermatogenesis and the molecular mechanisms that evolved to protect mammalian germ cells against stress. I completed two master's degrees in Biological Sciences and Computational Biology, then worked as a Lab Manager at the School of Veterinary Medicine at Texas Tech University before starting my PhD. Currently, I serve on the diversity committee of the American Society of Andrology (ASA) and I am part of the organizational committee of the ASA Basic Science Workshop 2025. I would be honored to serve as a trainee representative.