Triological Society’s 2025 Honorees and Thesis Award Winners: Celebrating remarkable surgeons at COSM 2025

Dr. Nathan

Cherie-Ann Nathan, MD, earned her medical degree from the University of Bombay in Mumbai, India, completed her otolaryngology/head and neck surgery residency and head and neck fellowship at the University of California, San Diego, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where she started her research career. Following her fellowship, she began her academic career at LSU Health Sciences Center, Shreveport, where she is the Jack Pou Endowed Professor and chair of the department of otolaryngology/head and neck surgery. She is also director of head and neck oncologic surgery and research at the Feist–Weiller Cancer Center in Shreveport and has a gratis appointment in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology.

Dr. Nathan’s passion to improve outcomes for patients with head and neck cancer was the reason she moved from India. She is a surgeon-scientist who maintains a busy practice treating head and neck cancer, thyroid, parathyroid, salivary gland tumors, and skin cancer, and she also leads an active research team. The National Cancer Institute has funded her translational research since 2000, and her work focuses on targeted therapy for head and neck squamous cell cancer (HNSCC) patients. She is recognized internationally for her seminal work on the molecular analysis of surgical margins, has pioneered multi-institutional clinical trials using mTOR inhibitors in HNSCC patients, and has received NIH funding for chemoprevention of cancer with curcumin and has a patent for a curcumin chewing gum. Dr. Nathan has authored more than 270 articles for peer-reviewed journals, multiple textbooks, and encyclopedia chapters, and she’s been invited to present more than 240 national and international lectures.

Dr. Nathan is the immediate past president of the Association of Academic Departments of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery (AAD), the past president of the American Head and Neck Society (AHNS), and the vice president-elect for the Southern Section of the Triological Society. She is a board member of the American Board of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery (ABO-HNS), AAO-HNSF,  and the Head and Neck Cancer Alliance, a board of governors member of the American College of Surgeons (ACS), a council member for the Society of University Otolaryngology (SUO), vice president of the U.S Collegium group, a committee member for Stand Up to Cancer, and has served on the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) review committee, the steering committee for the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society-CDC HPV, and the Larynx Preservation Guideline Panel for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). She also chaired the ASTRO-ASCO-AHNS multidisciplinary meeting and was section editor for Laryngoscope Investigative Otolaryngology.

Dr. Nathan has won numerous awards, including the 2024 Living Legends Hall of Distinction Award and the 2024 Women in Otolaryngology Helen F. Krause, MD Trailblazer Award from the AAO-HNSF, the 2020 Margaret Butler Outstanding Mentor of Women in Head and Neck Surgery Award from the AHNS, the Athena Award for community service from the Shreveport-Bossier Commerce Department, the Leonard Tow Humanism award from the Arnold Gold Foundation, and presidential citation and distinguished service awards from the AHNS, AAO-HNSF, and Western Section of the Triological Society. The Louisiana Board of Regents established two professorships initiated by grateful patients to honor her dedication and expertise—the Cherie-Ann Nathan Endowed Professorship in Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery and the Glass Nathan Endowed Professorship.