About
The Tobacco Online Policy Seminar (TOPS) is a free multidisciplinary, international forum for research with tobacco policy implications using experimental or quasi-experimental study designs (i.e., with a well-defined counterfactual). TOPS strives to be a respectful, inclusive, and diverse forum, with participants and attendees united around the concept of presenting and learning from tobacco research using study designs capable of producing results with a causal interpretation, with the ultimate goal being the production and sharing of knowledge to develop an effective tobacco policy framework for improving population health. This forum is designed to bring together academics, students, government employees, policy researchers, healthcare professionals, advocates, and funders, with the goal of breaking silos in tobacco policy research and providing a platform for high-quality research to be discussed and disseminated. TOPS Video Introduction
Executive Board*
Director: Mike Pesko, University of Missouri 
@mikepesko
Member: Michael Darden, Johns Hopkins University @Hopkins_Econ
Member: Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, University of Massachusetts Amherst @jhb19
Member: Ce Shang, Ohio State University @Ce_Shang_HE
Advisory Board
Warren Bickel, Virginia Tech
Michelle Bloch, National Cancer Institute
Alison Breland, Virginia Commonwealth University
John Cawley, Cornell University @cawley_john
Christopher Carpenter, Vanderbilt University
Frank Chaloupka, University of Illinois-Chicago
Kenneth Michael Cummings, Medical University of South Carolina
Dhaval Dave, Bentley University
Cristine Delnevo, Rutgers University @CrisDelnevo
Jeffrey Drope, Johns Hopkins University
Sherry Emery, University of Chicago – NORC @SherryEmery
Michael Eriksen, Georgia State University @MPEriksen
Jean-François Etter, University of Geneva @etterjf
Matthew Farrelly, Food and Drug Administration - Center for Tobacco Products
Geoffrey Fong, University of Waterloo @gfong570
Abigail Friedman, Yale University @AFriedmanPhD
Maciej Goniewicz, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
Emmanuel Guindon, McMaster University
Scott Halpern, University of Pennsylvania @ScottHalpernMD
Peter Hajek, Queen Mary University of London
Robert Hornik, University of Pennsylvania
Prabhat Jha, University of Toronto @countthedead
Mary Kautz, National Institute on Drug Abuse
Brian King, Food and Drug Administration - Center for Tobacco Products
Ryan Kennedy, Johns Hopkins University @ryan_david
Tessa Langley, University of Nottingham
David Levy, Georgetown University
Rafael Meza, BC Cancer Research
Richard O’Connor, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
Barbara Schillo, Truth Initiative
Jody Sindelar, Yale University
Andrew Strasser, University of Pennsylvania
Andy Tan, University of Pennsylvania @Andy_SL_Tan
James Thrasher, University of South Carolina
Theodore Wagener, Ohio State University
Founding Members
Catherine Maclean, George Mason University @JCMecon
Mike Pesko, University of Missouri @mikepesko
Ce Shang, Ohio State University @Ce_Shang_HE
Justin White, University of California-San Francisco @justinswhite
*: Each executive board member is committed to carrying out a strong research program free of tobacco industry influence. To this end, executive board members agree to accept no funding (including payment or reimbursement) or formal participation (e.g., board membership) with the tobacco industry, foundations they support, or individuals or entities that currently consult for the tobacco industry. We define the tobacco industry as any company that manufactures commercial tobacco products or is owned in part or in whole by a commercial tobacco manufacturer. We also agree to list all current and historical funding related to tobacco below. Any legally required payments from the tobacco industry (e.g., court depositions) will be disclosed below and donated to an anti-tobacco cause.
• Pesko: National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, American Cancer Society, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth, Health Canada, and the University of Kentucky’s Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise
• Darden: Johns Hopkins University
• Hartmann-Boyce: National Institute of Health and Care Research, Cancer Research UK, the University of Oxford, Cochrane, and the British Heart Foundation
• Shang: American Heart Association, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, Presbyterian Health Foundation, Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust, World Heart Federation
Funding for this conference was made possible, in part, by the Food and Drug Administration through grant R13FD007554. The views expressed in written conference materials or publications and by speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services; nor does any mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organization imply endorsements by the United States Government.