New Members Presenting in Scottsdale
Dr. Neil Chi, MD, PhD
I believe that my prior research training, as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, a Medical Scientist Training Program MD-PhD student at Northwestern University Medical School, a Clinical Investigator Pathway Program Medical Resident at the University of Pennsylvania, and a clinical and post-doctoral cardiology fellow at the University of California, San Francisco, has prepared me well for a physician-scientist career, which allows me 1) to care for patients, 2) to discover new basic science findings that may be translated to improve patient care and 3) to mentor and train the next generation of physician and scientists, particularly MD-PhD students. The goal of my laboratory is to identify the underlying mechanisms controlling the cell lineage fate decisions and morphogenesis of the cardiovascular system in development and regeneration with the aims of translating our findings towards developing cardiovascular regenerative therapies. Through support of an NIH Director's New Innovator Award, my laboratory has investigated the mechanisms of how tissue progenitor cells originate and how damaged organs regenerate in the zebrafish. To this end, we developed genetic cell-
lineage tracing strategies to time-lapse image haematopoietic stem cells forming from the aortic haemogenic endothelium [Bertrand, Chi et al., Nature 464:108-111 (2010)]. Using similar strategies, my laboratory has also discovered that not only ventricular but also atrial cardiomyocytes can endogenously reprogram and proliferate to create new ventricular cardiomyocytes for regenerating injured juvenile cardiac ventricles, thus supporting
the potential plasticity of cardiovascular lineages during cardiac injury [Zhang et al., Nature 498:497-501 (2013)]. More recently, we have developed new animal and cellular models to understand how adaptive myocardial reprogramming may pathologically remodel the adult mammalian heart. In particular, we are currently combining single cell technologies with patient samples collected from my clinical work to interrogate the distinct epigenomic and genomic differences and similarities between human and mouse adult cardiomyocytes during cardiac injury and heart failure. From these findings, we plan to develop new imaging
and cardiovascular technologies to translate these concepts to patient care.
Dr. Mark W. Feinberg, MD
Mark W. Feinberg, MD is a cardiologist and vascular biologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston. Dr. Feinberg is Director, Program in Cardiovascular RNA Biology Research at BWH and investigates signaling events that control vascular inflammation and angiogenesis as it relates to a range of ischemic cardiovascular disease states including atherosclerosis and its complications involving ischemic injury in the heart (myocardial infarction) and limb (peripheral artery disease). His group has discovered non-coding RNAs (microRNAs and lncRNAs) and their interactors with the aim of translating these findings into novel therapeutic approaches for ischemic cardiovascular and cardiometabolic disease. Dr. Feinberg has held various leadership roles in cardiovascular research including his service on international and national peer review grant study sections, editorial service, and as a Co-Chair of the Brigham Research Institute’s CVDM (Cardiovascular, Diabetes, and Metabolic Disorders) Center. He serves as Director of an AHA SFRN Center on cardiometabolic disease and is Associate Program Director of the BWH Cardiology Fellowship training program. He has mentored >50 trainees – many of whom have independent academic careers and have been recognized as recipients of national young investigator awards from the AHA, ACC, or ADA. Dr. Feinberg is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), Association of University Cardiologists (AUC), and American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Dr. Bonnie Ky, MD, MSCE
Dr. Bonnie Ky is the Founder’s Professor of Cardio-Oncology and tenured physician scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. She leads a highly active NIH-, AHA-, and PCORI-funded clinical translational research program in cardio-oncology with the fundamental goals of advancing actionable science to improve the cardiovascular care of our cancer patients. She is the Principal Investigator of multiple cohort studies focused on determining individual patient risk, through detailed phenotyping of the social determinants of health, clinical, biologic markers, and imaging-derived measures of cardiac function, and clinical trials focused on mitigating cardiovascular disease risk. She is the Director of the Thalheimer Center for Cardio-Oncology, the Founding Director of the Penn Translational Cardio-Oncology Center of Excellence, and Director of the Penn Center for Quantitative Echocardiography. She is a standing member and Chair of the NIH Clinical Integrative Cardiovascular and Hematological Sciences Study Section. She is the inaugural Chair of the ECOG-ACRIN Cardiotoxicity subcommittee and the co-Chair of the St Jude Children’s Research Hospital Cardiopulmonary Renal Working Group. She is the founding Editor-in-Chief of JACC: CardioOncology, inducted member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and now the Association of University Cardiologists; elected member of the Sarnoff Research Committee; elected member of the American College of Cardiology Board of Trustees; and recipient of the ECOG-ACRIN Young Investigator Award and International Cardio-Oncology Society Thomas Force Leadership Award.
Dr. Pradeep PA Mammen, MD, FACC, FAHA, FHFSA
Over the past 21 years, I have established myself as a clinician-scientist, who has developed the unique ability to traverse between the clinical and scientific spheres with relative ease. In addition to my clinical acuity and extensive clinical expertise in heart failure/VAD/heart transplantation, my scientific accomplishments have demonstrated I am capable of undertaking and leading scientific research studies in a highly collaborative and productive manner. In addition, my accomplishments have enabled me to become a national/international expert in neuromuscular-associated cardiomyopathies. This expertise has given me the opportunity to be an invited speaker at various institutions/scientific conferences, serve
as a grant reviewer on NIH and AHA study sections, serve as a member of various consensus panels, and serve on various Scientific Advisory Boards. In conclusion, my past clinical and academic
accomplishments have demonstrated that I am a highly motivated and innovative academic cardiologist, who has acquired the skill set of leading a diverse group of individuals pursuing a common goal.
Dr. Khurram Nasir, MD, MPH, MSc, FACC, FAHA, FASPC, FSSCT
Dr. Khurram Nasir holds the William A. Zoghbi Centennial Chair in Cardiovascular Health, Professor of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, serves as Chief, Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Wellness, Department of Cardiology, Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center. Additionally, he is a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and founding director of the Center for Cardiovascular Computational Health & Precision Medicine (C3-PH). Recently, he was appointed Co-Director of the newly established Houston Methodist-Rice Digital Health Institute (HM-DHI), where he collaborates with Rice University to drive transformative innovations in digital health, AI, and personalized healthcare. With over 950 publications and an h-index of 120, Dr. Nasir ranks among the top 2% of cited scientists globally. Supported by three NIH R01 grants and a major PCORI contract.
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His research is dedicated to advancing cardiovascular prevention through precision medicine tools designed to promote equitable, population-level health outcomes. He also leads pivotal initiatives as Principal Investigator of the Miami Heart Study and Co-Principal Investigator of the Pak-Sehat Study. Dr. Nasir’s contributions have earned him numerous accolades, including the Johns Hopkins Distinguished Alumni Award in 2013 for outstanding achievement and humanitarian service, the 2020 Arthur S. Agatston Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Award in recognition of his innovative work in coronary artery disease prevention, and, most recently, the Inaugural Game Changer Award from Asia Society Texas, celebrating trailblazers in science, technology, and healthcare.
Dr. Harmony Reynolds, MD
Dr. Harmony Reynolds is the Joel E. and Joan L. Smilow Professor of Cardiology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, where she directs the Sarah Ross Soter Center for Women’s Cardiovascular Research and co-directs of the Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center. She is dedicated to improving the health of women through research, clinical care and education. Dr. Reynolds’ research career has been focused on mechanisms and outcomes of cardiovascular disease in women and testing of treatment strategies for ischemic heart disease in clinical trials. She is particularly well known for her work in myocardial infarction with non-obstructive coronary arteries (MINOCA) and stable ischemic heart disease with nonobstructive coronary arteries (INOCA). Dr. Reynolds is the associate director of the clinical coordinating center for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute-funded, international, multi-center ISCHEMIA trial. In addition, she was the principal investigator of the CIAO-ISCHEMIA study, an international, multi-center, NHLBI-funded study researching the relationship between changes in symptoms and changes in stress test results over time in patients with INOCA. She is currently PI of the INOCA-CARE randomized trial evaluating cardiac rehabilitation in INOCA patients. Dr. Reynolds’ clinical efforts include cardiology practice at NYU Langone Health, with a focus on cardiovascular disease in women and the problems that disproportionately affect women, such as MINOCA, INOCA, coronary dissection and takotsubo syndrome. Dr. Reynolds received her medical degree from NYU School of Medicine and completed her training in internal medicine and cardiology at NYU and Bellevue Hospital. Dr. Reynolds was named NYU CTSI Mentor of the Year and received the Doris Duke Paragon Award for Research Excellence in 2023, and received the American College of Cardiology Bernadine Healy Leadership Award in Women’s CV Disease in 2024.
Dr. Jorge Saucedo
More information coming soon!
Dr. Nathan O. Stitziel, MD, PhD
Nathan Stitziel, MD, PhD, is Professor of Medicine and Genetics, Associate Director of the Medical Scientist Training Program, Director of Translational Cardiovascular Genetics, and Co-Director of Graduate Studies in Human and Statistical Genetics at the Washington University School of Medicine. He received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from Washington University and his MD and PhD degrees from the University of Illinois. After completing residency in the University of Chicago’s Physician Scientist Training Program, he trained in Cardiovascular Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Following a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Broad Institute and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Stitziel was recruited to the faculty at Washington University where he has remained since. As a physician-scientist and human geneticist, he directs a multidisciplinary basic and translational research program focused on understanding the inherited basis of cardiovascular disease and exploiting those insights to improve patient care. By integrating cutting-edge methods from next-generation genomics with classical techniques in molecular and cell biology along with animal model systems, his group has mapped multiple novel genes and causal pathways underlying both Mendelian and complex forms of cardiovascular disease. Dr. Stitziel’s work has been funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute and the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute along with numerous foundation awards. He is an elected fellow of the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology, and an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.
Dr. Mary Jane Farr, MD, PhD
Maryjane Farr, M.D., M.Sc. is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. She is the Heart Failure Section Chief and Medical Director of the Heart Transplant and Left Ventricular Assist Device Programs, and holds the Jackie and Charles Solomon Distinguished Chair in Clinical Excellence. Previously Dr. Farr was the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Associate Professor of Medicine and Medical Director of the Heart Transplant Program at Columbia University Medical Center, New York City.
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Dr. Farr is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University, (BA, Philosophy), Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons (MD, AOA), and the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health (MSc, Biostatistics). Dr. Farr trained in Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Diseases, and Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant at the New York Presbyterian Hospital, with additional heart failure and transplant training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York.
Dr. Farr was a member and leader at UNOS/OPTN for nine years, serving on the Thoracic Committee, as Heart Subcommittee Chair, on the Membership and Professional Standards Committee, as Region 9 (New York) Associate Councilor, and served a three year term on the UNOS/OPTN Board of Directors (2021-24). In addition, she is Chair of the Conflict-of-Interest Committee and member of the Consensus Conference Committee for ISHLT. She is a member of the Conflict of Interest Committee for the AST, Co-Chair of the AST Thoracic Committee and Chair-elect for 2025.
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Dr. Farr has authored more than 250 peer-reviewed manuscripts and has participated in guideline development for donor and candidate selection in heart transplantation with the ISHLT and AST. Dr. Farr has studied and written on the fairness of organ allocation, socioeconomic status and transplant opportunity, sex differences in heart transplantation, immunologic risk for rejection, pediatric to adult transition after transplant, primary graft dysfunction and long-term survival. She is an Associate Editor and Columnist at Circulation since 2021.
Dr. Paul Johnson Wang, MD
Dr. Wang is the Director of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Service and Professor of Medicine and Bioengineering (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is the John R. and Ai Giak L. Singleton Co-Director of the Stanford Center for Arrhythmia Research. Dr. Wang serves as the Director of Clinical Research in the Stanford Cardiovascular Medicine Division. Dr. Wang's research centers on developing innovative treatments of arrhythmias, including catheter ablation, implantable devices, diagnostic techniques, and novel digital technologies. Dr. Wang serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology. Dr. Wang received the 2017 AHA Council on Clinical Cardiology Distinguished Achievement Award. Dr. Wang served as the Center Director of the AHA Atrial Fibrillation SFRN DECIDE Grant and the Project Director of the AHA Health Technologies and Innovation SFRN Grant and the AHA Diversity in Clinical Trials SFRN Grant. Dr. Wang serves on the AHA Clinical Cardiology Council and previously served on the AHA Council Operations Committee, the AHA Diversity Committee of the Council Operations Committee, and the AHA National Science and Life Long Learning Committee. He is a former member of the Board of Trustees of the Heart Rhythm Society. Dr. Wang has 20 issued patents. Dr. Wang is co-inventor of the cryoablation catheter technology which has been used to treat over 1 million patients to date. Dr. Wang participated in the Stanford Biodesign Fogarty Innovation Accelerator program and the Stanford Catalyst Accelerator program. He co-founded the Stanford Biodesign Faculty Fellowship program, which for the past 10 years has trained Stanford faculty in medical device and technology innovation. Dr. Wang serves as the Stanford Biodesign Center’s Faculty Liaison. Dr. Wang is Co-Director of the Bioengineering Scholarly Concentration of the Stanford School of Medicine. Dr. Wang organizes an annual meeting, “Stanford Biodesign New Arrhythmia Technologies Retreat,” focusing on new technological advances in arrhythmia management and diagnosis. Dr. Wang is a Department of Medicine faculty mentoring lead. Dr. Wang is committed to increasing diversity in cardiovascular medicine. Dr. Wang received the Stanford Center for Asian Health and Education (CARE) 2024 Award. Dr. Wang is co-founder of the EP Collaboratory, which is working to facilitate the Electrophysiology (EP) Early Feasibility Studies (EFS) Program, with the support of the Medical Device Innovation Consortium (MDIC) in conjunction with the FDA.
Dr. Jane Leopold, MD FACC, FAHA, FSCAI
Dr. Jane Leopold is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a clinical interventional cardiologist, Director of the Women’s Interventional Cardiology Health Initiative and Director of the Cardiovascular Research Core at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is an internationally recognized investigator with expertise in cardiopulmonary vascular phenotyping. Her clinical research involves using precision medicine approaches to characterize the pathobiological mechanisms underlying complex cardiopulmonary vascular diseases. Her work has been funded by the NIH/NHLBI, the American Heart Association, the Lerner Foundation and she was named a Thomas W. Smith MD Scholar. She has coauthored numerous scientific manuscripts and she is the recipient of several research awards. She has served on national and international peer review committees. She is a member of several editorial boards, was a former associate editor at Circulation and Circulation:Cardiovascular Interventions and is currently the Deputy Editor for cardiology at the New England Journal of Medicine. In addition, she actively mentors and promotes the work of students, fellows, and early career faculty.
Dr. Francis J. Miller, MD, FAHA
Dr. Francis Miller is the Interim Co-Director of Cardiovascular Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Chief of Cardiology at the VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System in Nashville, TN. He completed his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Iowa. After a residency at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, he returned to Iowa for a fellowship in Cardiology before becoming an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Iowa in 1998. He joined Duke University in 2016 and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in 2020, serving as the Chief of Cardiology at the affiliated Salisbury VA Medical Center. In 2022, he became a Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Chief of Cardiology at the Nashville VA Medical Center. Dr. Miller has served on several national committees, including the FASEB Board of Directors, as Committee Chair for the Society for Redox Biology and Medicine, and as President of the American Federation for Medical Research (AFMR). He has participated in several study sections and editorial boards and is currently Deputy Editor for Circulation Research. Dr. Miller’s research program has focused on understanding the redox-dependent molecular and cellular mechanisms of cardiovascular disease. He is internationally recognized for his work on NADPH oxidases in blood vessels. Ongoing studies are also identifying synthetic RNA ligands as novel therapies for disease. Dr. Miller’s research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, Veterans Administration, Department of Defense, American Heart Association, and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Miller is a practicing cardiologist and avid supporter of the physician-scientist, having received awards for mentorship.
Dr. Sunil V. Rao, MD, FACC, FSCAI
Dr. Rao is Professor of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, and the Director of Interventional Cardiology for the NYU Langone Health System. He graduated summa cum laude from Miami University in Oxford, OH, and magna cum laude from The Ohio State University College of Medicine where he won the David Saylor Memorial Award for Cardiology Research. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine and fellowships in Cardiology and Interventional Cardiology at Duke University Medical Center. He served as Chief Fellow at The Duke Clinical Research Institute and was the Warren and Gloria A. Newman Fellow in Interventional Cardiology. After his training, he joined the faculty at Duke University Medical Center as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and rose to become Professor of Medicine in 2017. In 2005, he became the Director of the Catheterization Laboratories at the Durham VA Medical Center, and in 2014, he was appointed Chief of Cardiology at the Durham VA.
As the Chief of Cardiology at the Durham VA, Dr. Rao was selected for and completed the Duke Chancellor’s Leadership Training Program (C-CHAMP). His initiatives at the VA expanded patient access, established new clinical programs, improved the quality of care, and increased research funding from the NIH, the Department of Defense, and VA HSR&D across basic, translational, and clinical research domains.
He was the 2022-2023 President of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI), the international professional society for interventional cardiologists. His Presidency was the most productive in SCAI’s history as he led the development of an official interventional cardiology fellowship “match” process, established the SCAI Early Career Research Grant program, and increased diversity across SCAI committees and leadership.
In 2022, he was recruited to be the Director of Interventional Cardiology for the NYU Langone Health System. As Director of Interventional Cardiology for the NYU Langone Health System, Dr. Rao increased procedural volume, substantially improved quality metrics, improved cath lab efficiency and room utilization, and expanded research.
Dr. Rao has published over 400 peer-reviewed manuscripts. His main research interests are antithrombotic therapies for ACS and PCI, and novel interventional therapies for ischemic heart disease. Dr. Rao has been the Principal Investigator of several randomized clinical trials including the first registry-based randomized trial performed in the United States titled the “SAFE-PCI for Women” trial comparing radial and femoral approaches to PCI in women. He is the Principal Investigator for the NHLBI-funded PE-TRACT Trial comparing catheter-directed therapy with medical therapy for intermediate-risk pulmonary thromboembolism. He has won several awards including the W. Proctor Harvey Award from The American College of Cardiology (2011), and the Duke Cardiology Fellows’ Mentoring Award (2013, 2018), and The Duke Clinical Research Institute Robert M. Califf MD Award for Fellow Mentoring (2020).
At the national level, Dr. Rao serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Circulation Cardiovascular Interventions, the interventional journal of the American Heart Association’s flagship Circulation family of journals, and is Co-Editor-In-Chief of the ACC Collaborative Management Pathway for board certification.
Dr. Gregory Roth, MD, MPH
Gregory A. Roth, MD, MPH is Professor of Medicine, Health Metrics Sciences and Global Health in the Division of Cardiology and at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. At IHME, he is Director for the Program in Cardiovascular Health Metrics and Research Director for Client Services.
Dr. Roth’s research focuses on global cardiovascular health surveillance, population health, and quality of care and outcomes for cardiovascular diseases with a focus on heart failure, coronary heart disease, and arrhythmias. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others.
Dr. Roth earned his bachelor’s degree and MD from Brown University and his MPH from the University of Washington. He trained in internal medicine and cardiovascular diseases at the UW. He received additional training as a postdoctoral fellow with the Veterans Administration Health Services Research and Development branch. He is an attending cardiologist and echocardiographer at Harborview Medical Center at the University of Washington.
Dr. Amil Madhukar Shah, MD, MPH
Amil Shah, MD, MPH is a Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center where he Director of Population Sciences in the Department of Medicine and Director of the Dallas Heart Study. He holds the Dallas Heart Ball Chair in Cardiac Research and the Hoffman Endowment in Genetic and Epidemiology. Dr Shah is a cardiologist, echocardiographer, and clinician-scientist who leads research programs aimed at understanding the causes and consequences of cardiac dysfunction leading to heart failure, with the aim of identifying novel preventative interventions. His multiple R01-funded research program uses longitudinal and multimodal cardiac imaging (echocardiography, CT, SPECT imaging) and multi-omics (proteomics, metabolomics) in large observational cohorts and clinical trials to identify pathways underlying heart failure. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Brown University, medical degree from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Masters in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed internal medicine residency at The Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania, fellowship in cardiovascular disease at Tufts Medical Center and fellowship in advanced echocardiography at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr Shah has authored over 250 publications and his work has been supported by continuous funding from the NIH.
Dr. George A. "Rick" Stouffer, MD
George A. Stouffer, MD is the Ernest and Hazel Craige Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. He serves as the Chief of Cardiology, Co-director of the McAllister Heart Institute and Physician in Chief of the Heart and Vascular Service Line. He is an interventional cardiologist with basic science research interests is in the areas of smooth muscle cell growth regulation and thrombin generation and clinical research interests in myocardial infarction, renal artery stenosis and using CYP2C19 genotyping to selected anti-platelet therapy.
Dr. Jonathan W. Weinsaft, MD
Dr. Jonathan W. Weinsaft is Chief of Cardiology at Weill Cornell Medicine - New York Presbyterian Hospital – where he serves as the Antonio M. Gotto Jr., M.D. Professor in Atherosclerosis and Lipid Research. He completed medical school at New York University, residency in internal medicine and cardiology fellowship at Weill Cornell – New York Presbyterian Hospital (NYPH), and a cardiac imaging fellowship at Duke University prior to joining faculty at Weill Cornell – NYPH. He has served in editorial leadership positions for journals such as Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Imaging, and has been a longstanding contributor to both NIH study sections and other NIH initiatives. His clinical research has thematically utilized cardiac MRI to determine impact of altered myocardial and vascular tissue substrate on therapeutic response and clinical outcomes, including among patients with heart failure, valvular heart disease, and genetically triggered aortopathies. His group has validated new technological methods (using cardiac MRI and other approaches) to assess cardiovascular remodeling and to characterize tissue vascularity and blood oxygen consumption. Dr. Weinsaft's work continues to focus on development of novel imaging approaches to inform mechanisms, prognosis, and clinical decision-making in cardiovascular disease.