Dr Joseph D. Phillips, MD is an assistant professor of surgery at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He is a general thoracic surgeon specializing in minimally invasive robotic oncologic surgery. He has served as the associate program director for the General Surgery Residency at DartmouthHitchcock and his research interests are in tumor immunology in nonsmall cell lung cancer, smoking cessation, and health services research, including implementation of patient reported outcomes to improve care. He is also an investigative member of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC) in the Immunology and Cancer Immunotherapy Program and is a funded Faculty Research Fellow. He is certified by The American Board of Surgery and The American Board of Thoracic Surgery and a Fellow of The American College of Surgeons (FACS).Over the last several years he has worked to build a collaborative partnership in tumor immunology research encompassing thoracic tumors and melanoma. In addition, he has mentored several residents to numerous national presentations and publications related to surgical outcomes and process improvement. He is also actively involved in tobacco cessation research and currently serves as the principal investigator for the National Cancer Institute’s funded Cancer Center Cessation initiative (C3i) supplemental funding grant here at the NCCC. In addition, he has received research funding from the American Cancer Society and The American Association for Thoracic Surgery. In addition to his clinical and research career, Dr Phillips serves on the Executive Committee of The Thoracic Outcomes Research Network (ThORN), the Executive Council of the Association for Academic Surgery (AAS), and as the Chair of the Public Relations Subcommittee for the Esophageal Cancer Education Foundation. He also serves in several leadership roles in the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) and the New England Surgical Society. (In association with the Section of Academic Surgery).