Editors’ Note

We are pleased to inform our readers that two outstanding scientists have recently agreed to join our Advisory Board and have both been welcomed by their colleagues into their group.

Dr. Kimberly Frost-Pineda is a graduate of the University of South Florida, where she received her Master's degree in Public Health in 1998, and the University of Florida, where she received her PhD in Medical Anthropology in 2008. Dr. Frost-Pineda has maintained Board Certification in Public Health (CPH) since 2010 through the National Board of Public Health Examiners. She began her academic career protecting human subjects in research as a coordinator for the USF Institutional Review Board and then joined the University of Florida's Division of Addiction Medicine where she later held the position of Director of Public Health Research and Assistant in Psychiatry. Dr. Frost-Pineda transitioned to an industry career in clinical and behavioral regulatory research and served as Associate Principal Scientist at Altria Client Services during her ten year tenure. In 2016, Dr. Frost-Pineda joined Reynolds American Inc. (RAI) Services where she most recently held the position of Director of Science Strategy and Engagement, Scientific and Regulatory Affairs. She has had an exceptional career as a researcher and reviewer, authoring numerous scientific papers, book chapters as well as congress presentations. She is mother to four children and is an active volunteer for Rural World Impetus, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of people in rural areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her fields of expertise that we are looking forward to draw on are Human Smoking Behavior and New Tobacco Products.

Dr. Mohamadi Sarkar of Altria Client Services (ALCS, LLC) has agreed to accept our invitation to become a member of our Advisory Board. Dr. Sarkar is originally trained as a Pharmacist from the University of Bombay, India and subsequently received his Master's degree in Pharmaceutical Technology from the same University and went on to receive his PhD in Clinical Pharmacology from the Medical College of Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University. Before joining ALCS, Dr. Sarkar held a variety of positions at West Virginia University, including: tenured Professor, Clinical Pharmacology; Professor, Genetics, and Developmental Biology; and Professor, Tobacco Research Center, WVU Cancer Center. Dr. Sarkar continued to teach at Virginia Commonwealth University where he still holds an affiliate appointment and teaches Clinical Pharmacology. He is Fellow of the College of Clinical Pharmacology and Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. During his academic career, Dr. Sarkar worked on research related to smoking and health, funded by the National Cancer Institute. At ALCS, Dr. Sarkar leads a team of scientists within Regulatory Affairs that provide strategic direction towards developing the science and evidence for regulatory submissions for smoke-free tobacco products. Before being appointed to his current position, Dr. Sarkar served as the Director, Clinical Research. In that role, he led the clinical research group to generate evidence that enabled responsible product development and tobacco-harm reduction. Against this background, Dr. Mohamadi Sarkar ideally complements the scientific expertise of our Board.

Last but not least we would like to express our sincere gratitude to our friend Dr. Dan Heck who recently decided to step down from our Board after taking his retirement from RAI Services Company a couple of years ago. Dr. Heck has been a longstanding member of our Advisory Board, having joined this group in 2003. He generously shared his expertise and also conscientiously and extensively reviewed papers that required a good deal of work prior to publication. We are very grateful for his help and advice and also for always readily stepping up and reviewing at short notice. We owe him a debt of gratitude for his commitment to our Journal for two decades and wish him well in his retirement.