Faculty
Samuel Asirvatham
Dr Asirvatham is presently Professor of Medicine, Professor of Pediatrics, in the Department of Medicine and a Consultant in Cardiac Electrophysiology in the Department of Pediatric Cardiology, Division of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. He is also presently the Program Director for the Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Training Program and Director of Strategic Collaborations, Center for Innovation at Mayo Clinic. These positions allow him to pursue his clinical interests (including radiofrequency ablation of ventricular tachycardia and atrial fibrillation and implantation of newer defibrillators and cardiac resynchronization devices, particularly in patients with congenital heart disease) and research interests (including development of a percutaneous epicardial system to close the left atrial appendage, development of a novel circuit to prevent coagulum formation during radiofrequency ablation procedures and specifically designed and created tools to allow electrophysiology mapping and ablation through the veins of the central nervous system to treat seizures and other central nervous system disorders).
Aaron Baggish
Dr Aaron L Baggish is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and serves as the Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Cardiovascular Performance Program (CPP), the nation’s first program designed to provide comprehensive cardiovascular care to athletes. The CPP provides consultative and longitudinal clinical care for active people across the spectrum ranging from elite professional / Olympic competitors to recreational athletes. Dr. Baggish is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Sports Medicine. He serves as medical director for the BAA Boston Marathon and cardiologist/team physician for US Soccer, US Rowing, The Boston Athletic Association / Adidas elite runner development program, Harvard University, Suffolk University, the New England Patriots, the Boston Bruins, and the New England Revolution. His research interests include exercise-induced cardiac remodeling, pre-participation screening / sudden death prevention, exercise dose and clinical outcomes, and the cardiovascular effects of anabolic steroid use. He currently maintains independent research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, the NFL Players Association, and the Department of Defense.
Noel Bairey Merz
C. Noel Bairey Merz, MD, holds the Women's Guild Endowed Chair in Women's Health, and is Director of the Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center, the Linda Joy Pollin Women’s Heart Health Program, and the Preventive Cardiac Center at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute. She also is Professor of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Dr. Bairey Merz's research interests include women and heart disease, mental stress and heart disease, the role of exercise and stress management in reversing disease, and the role of nutrition in heart disease. Currently, she is chair of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored WISE (Women's Ischemic Syndrome Evaluation) initiative, which is investigating potential methods for more effective diagnosis and evaluation of coronary artery disease in women. Dr. Bairey Merz has received investigational grants from the NIH-National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), NIH-National Center for Alternative and Complementary Medicine (NCCAM), the Pfeiffer Foundation, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, The Barbra Streisand Foundation and the Women's Guild.
Jeroen Bax
Jeroen J. Bax is professor of Cardiology and Director of non-invasive cardiac imaging, at the department of Cardiology, Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands.
He has been working intensively with the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), and is currently serving as President of the ESC.
He has been Associate Editor of the American College Cardiology, and is currently Associate Editor of the European Heart Journal.
He has co-authored numerous scientific articles, has guided many PhD fellows and his main interests of research include imaging in heart failure, stable coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease and atrial fibrillation.
Matt Budoff
Matthew J Budoff, MD, FACC, is Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine and Director of Cardiac CT at the Division of Cardiology at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California. Dr Budoff received his medical degree from the George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C. and completed an internship and residency in internal medicine, as well as a fellowship in cardiology at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.
Dr Budoff is chief investigator in several active medical research trials and is a frequent lecturer on topics of cardiology at symposia, congresses and annual conferences on nearly every continent. He has authored or co-authored over 500 research papers, six books and 36 book chapters.
Dr Budoff received the Einstein Award for Scientific Achievement from the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, UK, and was awarded the Top Oral Abstract at the American Heart Association’s 2009 meeting. Most recently, he was named to the U.S. News & World Report list of Top Doctors for 2011.
Bernard Gersh
Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Consultant in Cardiovascular Diseases and Internal Medicine. Dr Gersh received his MB, ChB, from the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He received his Doctor of Philosophy Degree from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
Dr Gersh has published 799 manuscripts and 137 book chapters. (h-index 106) Dr Gersh is the editor of 14 books and is on the editorial board of 25 journals. He is also Editor-in-Chief of UpToDate in Cardiology. He is a Past Chairman of the Council of Clinical Cardiology of the American Heart Association and a member of the World Heart Federation’s Scientific and Policy Initiatives Committee (SPIC).
He is an Honorary Member/Fellow of the South African Cardiac Society and the South African Heart Association, the Sociedad Chilena De Cardiologia Y Cirugia Cardiovascular, the Cardiac Society of India, and the British Cardiac Society. He is an Honorary Professor of Medicine at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. In 2014 he was named in the Thomson Reuters list of individuals with the greatest number of cited scientific papers 2002-2012.
Dr Gersh was the 2004 recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award of the AHA Council of Clinical Cardiology and the 2007 recipient of the ACC Distinguished Service Award. He received the degree of Ph.D. (honoris causa) from The University of Coimbra, Portugal in 2005. Dr Gersh is the recipient of the 2012 James B. Herrick award of the AHA and in 2013 he was designated Master of the American College of Cardiology.
Michael Mack
Michael Mack, MD has practiced cardiothoracic surgery in Dallas, TX since 1982. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, General Surgery, and Thoracic Surgery and is currently the Director of Cardiovascular Surgery for the Baylor Scott & White Health, Chair of the Baylor Scott & White Health Cardiovascular Governance Council and Director of Cardiovascular Research at The Heart Hospital Baylor Plano. He also co-founded and is Chair of the Board of Cardiopulmonary Research Science and Technology Institute (CRSTI). He has over 400 peer reviewed medical publications.
Dr Mack was President of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) 2011 and is Past President of the Thoracic Surgery Foundation for Research and Education (TSFRE) 2009-2011, the Southern Thoracic Surgical Association (STSA) 2009 and the International Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery (ISMICS) 2000.
He has served on the Board of Directors of the STS and is currently on the Board of Directors of CTSNet and is a member of the American College of Cardiology Foundation (ACCF) Board of Trustees and the ACC Interventional Scientific Council. He is an honorary Fellow of the German Society for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and the Indian Association of Cardiothoracic Surgery. He was the first Chair of the STS/ACC National Transcatheter Valve Therapy (TVT) Registry Steering Committee and is the liaison to the TVT Registry from the ACCF National Cardiac Data Registry (NCDR) Management Board and is on the Steering Committee of the Cardiothoracic Surgery Network (CTSN) of the NIH. He is a member of the FDA MDEpiNet Stakeholder Council, the NCDR Management Board and the Brookings Institute National Medical Device Postmarket Surveillance System Planning Board.
Rick Nishimura
Dr Nishimura is the Judd and Mary Morris Leighton Professor of Cardiovascular Diseases and Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. He is a Master of the American College of Cardiology and Master of the American College of Physicians. Dr Nishimura’s research areas have involved the field of cardiovascular hemodynamics. He has an active clinical practice with a particular interest in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, valvular heart disease and pericardial disease. He currently serves as Chair of the ACC/AHA Valvular Heart Disease Guideline Committee and has been on the ACC/AHA Parent Guideline Committee. He has received the ACC Master Teacher Award, the American Heart Association Laennec Award, as well as the Mayo Clinic Distinguished Educator Award.
Rahul Sharma
Rahul Sharma, MBBS, FRACP is Assistant Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles. Dr Sharma is an interventional cardiologist with specialized clinical and research interests in structural heart disease, particularly transcatheter valve therapy. Currently, Dr Sharma serves as the Director of Structural Cardiac Imaging and Associate Director of Interventional Cardiology Research at Cedars Sinai. He is a clinical investigator in ongoing research studies, Director of the CT Core lab for multicenter clinical trials and has co-authored numerous scientific articles and book chapters. Dr Sharma also serves as a national and international clinical proctor for transcatheter valve implantation.
Bob Vogel
Robert Vogel, MD is a preventive cardiologist at the University of Colorado Denver, where he is a Clinical Professor of Medicine. He received his BA from Columbia University (physics) and MD from Yale University. He served on the faculties of the Universities of Colorado, Michigan, and Maryland. Dr Vogel has investigated heart disease for more than 40 years, pioneering tomographic myocardial perfusion imaging and quantitative coronary arteriography, and discovering the acute vascular effects of food, physical activity, and media. He is the author of more than 250 publications. He was Director of Cardiology at the University of Maryland for 14 years and served as the President of the Association of University Cardiologists. Dr Vogel lectures frequently to practicing physicians on lifestyle and heart disease prevention and has received a Good Housekeeping Magazine’s “Best Doctors in America” designation and a Federal Scientist of the Year Award. Dr Vogel serves as a consultant to the Pritikin Longevity Institute and Co-Chair of the National Football League Subcommittee on Cardiovascular Disease.
Carole Warnes
Dr Warnes is a Professor of Medicine and a consultant in Cardiovascular Diseases, Internal Medicine, and Pediatric Cardiology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
She received her medical degree from Newcastle upon Tyne, where she completed her general medical training before going to London to pursue Cardiology. She completed her post-graduate thesis at the National Institutes of Health before returning to the National Heart Hospital in London for another two years. She joined the Cardiovascular Division at Mayo Clinic in 1987, where she began the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Clinic, of which she is the Director.
At Mayo Clinic, she received the Henry S. Plummer Distinguished Physician Award in 2004 and the Distinguished Educator Award in 2010. She co-chaired the ACC/AHA Guidelines for the Management of Adult Congenital Heart Disease and also has a major interest in pregnancy and cardiac disease. She has edited three books, published over 200 manuscripts, and is on the ACC Board of Trustees.
National Faculty
Aubrey Almeida - Epworth Hospital, Melbourne
Bonita Anderson - Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane
Con Aroney - Holy Spirit Northside Hospital, Brisbane
Brian Bailey - Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney
Ravinay Bhindi - Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney
Warrick Bishop - Calvary Cardiac Centre, Hobart
Darryl Burstow - Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane
Jonathan Chan - Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane
Clara Chow - The George Institute for Global Health, Sydney
David Colquhoun - Wesley Medical Centre, Brisbane
Rachael Cordina - Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney
Greg Cranney - Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney
Philip Currie - Cardio Vascular Services, Perth
Richard Dunn, Bankstown Heart Clinic, Sydney
Gemma Figtree - Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney
Fiona Foo, Sydney Cardiology Group, Sydney
Tony Forshaw - Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane
Tony Freeman - Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney
Emily Granger - St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney
Christian Hamilton-Craig - The Prince Charles Hospital & University of Queensland, Brisbane
Richard Harper - Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne
Phil Harris - Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney
Christopher Hayward - St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney
Julie Humphries - HeartCare Partners, Brisbane
Homayoun Jalali - Queensland Heart & Lung Surgery, Brisbane
Richmond Jeremy - Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney
Craig Juergens - Liverpool Hospital, Sydney
Sharon Kay - Structural Heart Disease Australia, Brisbane
Tony Keech - Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney
Rebecca Kozor - Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney
Len Kritharides - Concord Hospital, Sydney
Gayathri Kumarasinghe - Liverpool Hospital, Sydney
Andre La Gerche - Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne
Jo-Dee Lattimore - Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney
Andrew MacIsaac - St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne
Manu Mathur, North Shore Private Hospital, Sydney
Ryan Maxwell - Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane
Mark McGuire - Eastern Heart Clinic, Sydney
Stuart Moir - Monash Heart, Melbourne
David Muller, St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney
Julie Mundy - Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane
Martin Ng - Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney
Jurgen Passage - Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Perth
David Platts, The Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane
Lynne Pressley - Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney
David Prior - St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne
Raj Puranik - Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney
Dorothy Radford - Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane
Ruth Ramm - Echo Ed, Brisbane
Greg Scalia - HeartCare Partners, Brisbane
David Scicluna - The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne
Chris Semsarian - Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney
Jason Sharp - Sydney Adventist Hospital, Sydney
Rob Smith, Sutherland Hospital, Sydney
Phillip Spratt, St Vincent's Private Hospital, Sydney
David Sullivan, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney
Peter Tesar, St Andrew's War Memorial Hospital, Brisbane
Liza Thomas - Liverpool Hospital/UNSW, Sydney
Helen Thomson - Alfred Hospital, Melbourne
Darren Walters - Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane
David Whalley - Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney
Hugh Wolfenden - Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney
Leah Wright, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne