The O Campaign Directors

Eric L. Ding, Sc.D.

As a teen, Eric developed a baseball sized tumor and was initially given only a few years to live. He not only defied the odds and survived, but dedicated his life to public health research and preventive medicine. Frustrated by the slow pace of new treatments and preventions, Eric partnered with Thalas to found The O Campaign for Cancer Research to spur the pace of innovation and develop new avenues in cancer prevention. The O Campaign is currently comprised of 3.1 million registered members and was featured in Newsweek in 2007.

Eric was previously involved with and credited as a whistle-blower in the drug safety investigation of Vioxx and related sister drugs that drew international attention. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, he was recognized and named in the New York Times and USA Today. His two dozen published works have also received over 140 external citations in less than 3 years. He also currently serves as an expert committee member on the World Health Organization's Global Burden of Disease Project.

Eric received his BA, with election to Phi Beta Kappa and Honors in Public Health, from The Johns Hopkins University. He received his dual-doctorates in epidemiology and in nutrition from Harvard University, where he studied diabetes and cancer in an NIH-sponsored cancer research training program, and has taught and lectured in over 10 different courses at Harvard. He is a 2008 recipient of the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship. He and his family immigrated to the United States when he was age 5 and grew up in the Great Plains and Pennsylvania. As a scientist, he currently works at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is a Sigma Chi.

Joseph J. Chung

Like many others, Joseph has always believed in the collective human ability to achieve great feats. He is passionate about developing himself, individuals, teams, and organizations at every level. Thus, he founded Thalas, a socially conscious company headquartered in San Francisco with a bold vision to invent and execute infinite possibilities.

Through revealing life experiences, Joseph knows the world posesses the ability to prevent and cure cancer via the empowerment of researchers and the public, as well as the sharing of knowledge and understanding between constituents. Joseph is determined to actualize such dreams into results. Through Thalas, he has provided services to several thought leaders, worked with Jet Blue, Hilton Hotels, Stanford University, Berrett-Koehler Publishing, US Steel, been interviewed in the Wall Street Journal, and co-founded the O Campaign for Cancer Research with Eric Ding.

Joseph was born and raised in Logan, Utah. He earned his BA with Honors from The Johns Hopkins University, focusing on International Studies and Business Development. He started and led several influential student leadership organizations and went on to work with Bloomberg in their Manhattan and San Francisco offices as an analyst of financial markets. A synchronistic unfolding of events allowed him to shift his career and work closely with Bill George, the best selling author of Authentic Leadership and True North. Additionally, Joseph is the Sigma Chi advisor at Stanford University and resides in the California Bay Area.