Executive Committee
-
Julio A. Chirinos, MD, PhD is a Professor of Medicine in the Cardiovascular Division, Co-Director of the Clinical Research T32 Training Program in Cardiovascular Biology and Medicine, and Adjunct Faculty at the Center for Magnetic Resonance and Optical Imaging, at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He is a specialist in cardiac imaging (echocardiography and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging). He is also adjunct Faculty at the University of Ghent in Belgium, where he maintains an active collaboration with the Asklepios Investigators. His PhD training was focused on the non-invasive assessment of arterial hemodynamics in humans.
He directs an NIH-funded research program focused on the role of arterial stiffness and pulsatile hemodynamics in cardiovascular disease, mechanisms of human heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), the use of proteomics to discern mechanisms of heart failure, and the cardiovascular consequences of COVID-19. He currently leads clinical studies designed to therapeutically target the arterial tree in order to reduce the consequences of adverse pulsatile hemodynamics on the heart. He also leads various cohort studies in which deep cardiovascular phenotyping is aimed at characterizing phenotypic profiles and mechanisms of disease in humans, including general community studies, and clinical studies in patients with HFpEF and COVID-19 survivors.
Dr. Chirinos has published >250 papers in high-impact journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine Evidence, The Lancet, The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Circulation, Hypertension and Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC). He has received awards or honorary fellowships from the American Heart Association, the Inter-American Society of Cardiology, the American Society of Hypertension, the European Society of Cardiology, and the Korean Society of Cardiology. He has also received multiple research grants from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the National Institutes for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), the American College of Radiology (ACR), and the American Heart Association (AHA), among others. He has participated in various clinical expert committees for the American Heart Association, American Society of Echocardiography, European Society of Cardiology, American Society of Hypertension, European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging and the Lancet Commission for Hypertension. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Chirinos led 2 international multicenter trials testing therapeutic strategies related to the intersection of COVID-19 and cardiovascular disease. He is the co-Chair of the Global Heart Failure biomarker consortium, an international effort aimed at characterizing novel protein biomarkers in heart failure. He is also the University of Pennsylvania Principal Investigator and member of the Steering Committee of Heart Share, a multicenter research consortium funded by the NHLBI aimed at discerning mechanisms of disease in human Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction.
He is currently the President of the North American Artery society, which promotes the study of arterial function as a determinant of cardiovascular disease. He was also an Associate Editor of the American Heart Association Journal Circulation Heart Failure, the journal of Clinical Hypertension, Editor of the Cochrane Group (Cochrane Collaboration), Senior Consulting Editor of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology – Cardiovascular Imaging and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the American Heart Association, Pulse and the Journal of Geriatric Cardiology. He is the editor of a comprehensive textbook on Arterial Stiffness and Pulsatile Hemodynamics (Arterial Stiffness and Pulsatile Hemodynamics in Health and Disease; Elsevier, 2022).
Dr. Chirinos also directs a core analysis laboratory for assessments of cardiac and arterial structure and function with non-invasive imaging, which has served as the core lab for various multicenter studies, including multicenter population studies, clinical cohort studies, American College of Radiology Network studies and industry-funded studies. He has been an invited speaker in >150 scientific sessions
-
A native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Dr. Thais Coutinho received her medical degree from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro in 2004, and completed residency and fellowship training in Internal Medicine, Cardiology, Vascular Medicine, Advanced Echocardiography, and Research at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, in 2013. During her training, she received numerous awards, including the American Heart Association’s Young Investigator Award (2011), the Mayo Clinic’s Summerskill Research Award (2013) and the Mayo Clinic’s Cardiovascular Division Outstanding Achievement Award (2013).
Upon graduating, Dr. Coutinho joined the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI) as a Clinician-Scientist and continued to receive Awards for her research and advocacy, including the Canadian Cardiovascular Society’s Young Investigator Award (2015), the UOHI Academic Medical Organization Research Award for Clinical Science (2016) and Public Education (2018), the UOHI Global Achievement Award (2019), the Women as One Escalator Award (2021), The Ottawa Hospital Department of Medicine Jeff Turnbull Healthcare Advocacy Award (2021), the Canadian Cardiovascular Society’s Dr. Harold N. Segall Award of Merit (2022), and the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine’s Early Career Researcher of the Year Award – Clinical (2022).
In 2017, she was appointed Chief of the Division of Cardiac Prevention and Rehabilitation and Chair of the Canadian Women’s Heart Health Centre. This was a historical moment for the UOHI, as Dr. Coutinho was the first woman in the Institution’s 40-year history to be appointed as Division Chief.
Dr. Coutinho has published several high impact manuscripts in the field of Cardiovascular Diseases and has secured over 16 million dollars in research grants, with over 4 million dollars as a Principal Investigator. Her research program focuses on aortic function and hemodynamics, with a special emphasis on arterial stiffness and its role on the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases such as thoracic aortic aneurysms, pre-eclampsia and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. She applies a sex- and gender-lens to all of her investigations, evaluating sex differences in arterial aging and how it may help explain sex differences in cardiovascular diseases.
Dr. Coutinho is also a sought-after educator, having addressed audiences at many national and international meetings, in addition to her efforts on public education and women’s heart health advocacy. She has co-Chaired the first (2016), second (2018), third (2021) and fourth (2023) Canadian Women’s Heart Health Summit, the largest conference in the world dedicated exclusively to the cardiovascular health of women. Further, she is passionate about advancing knowledge translation about women’s cardiovascular health issues, and to accomplish this she has launched, with her team, the Canadian Women’s Heart Health Alliance, whose Executive Steering Committee she chaired until her departure from Canada in the summer of 2023. This Alliance’s Mission is to provide leadership in the development, implementation and evaluation of cardiovascular prevention and management strategies to improve women’s cardiovascular health.
-
Gary L. Pierce, PhD, FAHA, FAPS is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Health and Human Physiology and the Russell B. Day and Florence D. Day Chair in Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Iowa. Dr. Pierce is also an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine, Division of Nephrology and Hypertension in the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa where he also directs the Vascular Core Laboratory in the Institute for Clinical and Translational Science Clinical Research Unit. He is a faculty member in the Abboud Cardiovascular Research Center and the Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center in the Carver College of Medicine and an Associate Member of the Environmental Health Sciences Research Center in the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa. Dr. Pierce is a fellow of the American Heart Association and the American Physiological Society and on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Applied Physiology, Experimental Physiology and Clinical Science. He is Treasurer of the North American Artery (NAA) Society and has been Co-Chair of NAA Annual Meeting Program Committee since 2013. He received a PhD in Applied Physiology and Kinesiology with a focus in cardiovascular exercise physiology from the University of Florida and completed postdoctoral training in vascular aging/physiology in the Department of Integrative Physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder. He has published 100+ articles in the areas of mechanisms of vascular aging (endothelial function/arterial stiffness) and interventions to prevent/treat vascular and cognitive aging in humans and has been continuously funded by the NIH or AHA since 2013. He has been a faculty member at the University of Iowa since 2011.
-
Dr. Stella S. Daskalopoulou is an Internist with special interest in Vascular Medicine. She is a tenured Associate Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine (Divisions of Internal Medicine and Experimental Medicine), Faculty of Medicine, McGill University.
Dr. Daskalopoulou’s research program centers around the identification of early markers of vascular impairment and maintenance of vascular health, with a focus on cardio-metabolic diseases, women’s health, and vascular disease prevention. She performs research in hypertension, arterial stiffness in subjects with different cardiovascular risk factors, including pre-eclampsia, hypertension, diabetes, and smoking, as well as in atherosclerotic disease where she is working towards the identification of novel pathways of atherosclerotic plaque instability.
Dr. Daskalopoulou has established and directs the Vascular Health Unit at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), which includes a clinical and a wet-bench lab, and where she is conducting her vascular research projects. She has been co-Leader of the Cardiovascular Health Across the Lifespan (CHAL) Program of the Research Institute of the MUHC, and the Director of the Scholarly Activity Rotation for McGill Internal Medicine Residents at the Montreal General Hospital.
She has over 200 high-quality peer-reviewed publications, and over 6500 citations for her work, with an h-index of 47. She has received research funding from several agencies, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and Fonds de recherche du Québec - Santé (> $8 million as a Principal/co-Principal Investigator).
She is the co-Chair of the hypertension Canada Guidelines, and the Chair of the Central Review Committee of the Hypertension Canada Guidelines. She is also the secretary of the North American Artery Society.
She holds several personal awards, including, among others: the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Quebec Award of Excellence - John J. Day M.D., the Department of Medicine Early Career Staff Research Award; the Hypertension Canada Jacques-de-Champlain New Investigator Award for significant dedication and contributions to research and health services in Canada; the Department of Medicine, McGill University Early Career Staff Research Award; the Young Researcher Award of Excellence from the HSFQ; the Canadian Foundation for Women’s Health Research Award; the Bourse FRSQ - La Société Québécoise d’Hypertension Artérielle Jacques-de-Champlain; and the Canadian Society of Internal Medicine New Investigator Award.
-
Elaine Urbina is Professor of Pediatrics (Cardiology) and Director of Preventive Cardiology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. She began her research career with the Bogalusa Heart Study in 1991 where she initiated non-invasive CV imaging studies on young adults. She later extended this research to adolescents with obesity-related CV risk factors. She has been continuously funded by NIH and/or AHA since 1994. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Cardiology, and the American Heart Association and past chair of the Atherosclerosis, Hypertension and Obesity in Youth committee of the Young Hearts council of AHA. She is also president of the International Pediatric HTN Association and the North American Artery Association. https://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/research/cores/cardio-imaging/
NAA Conference Committee
Gary Pierce, PhD (Co-Chair, NAA Treasurer)
Professor
University of Iowa
Elaine Urbina, MD (NAA President)
Professor
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
Julio Chirinos, MD, PhD (NAA Vice-President)
Professor
University of Pennsylvania
Tina Brinkley, PhD
Associate Professor
Wake Forest University
Zachary Clayton, PhD
Assistant Research Professor
University of Colorado Boulder
Elizabeth Lefferts, PhD
Assistant Professor
Iowa State University
Kevin Heffernan, PhD
Associate Professor
Columbia University
Ashley Walker, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of Oregon
Lyndsey DuBose, PhD (Co-Chair)
Assistant Professor
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Stella Daskalopoulou, MD, PhD (NAA Secretary)
Professor
McGill University
Kerrie Moreau, PhD
Professor
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Diana Jalal, MD
Associate Professor
University of Iowa
David Edwards, PhD
Professor
University of Delaware
Wes Lefferts, PhD
Assistant Professor
Iowa State University
Bo Fernhall, PhD
Professor and Dean
University of Massachusetts at Boston
Ray Townsend, MD (NAA Past-President)
Professor
University of Pennsylvania
Demetra Christou, PhD
Associate Professor
University of Florida
Thais Coutinho, MD
Professor
Mayo Clinic
Jason Au, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of Waterloo
Vienna Brunt, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of Colorado Anschutz
Medical Campus
Early Investigator Committee
-
Assistant Professor, Department of Kinesiology, Iowa State University
Fun fact: I met my wife at NAA! I have also been to Everest Base Camp twice on research expeditions.
Why I joined NAA’s EIC: I want EIC to provide a social network and opportunity for newcomers to NAA to find friends and network. I first attended NAA without knowing anyone and I stumbled into Bo Fernhall's lab. They were my EIC. I want EIC to be able to welcome new attendees and provide them with some structured events and opportunities to meet new people and make new connections without feeling alone or isolated at a new conference, since that can be intimidating.
Twitter: @weslefferts
-
Assistant Professor, Pediatric Cardiology; Director, Preventive Cardiology; The Heart Center, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH
Fun Fact: I have a tradition of finding new sushi places to try whenever I go to conferences. Let me know if you have any suggestions!
What NAA means to me: A dynamic group of people pushing the field of arterial health forward
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewhtran/
-
Graduate Student Trainee, Department of Human Physiology, University of Oregon
Fun fact: I originally wanted to be a registered dietician, but then found that studying arteries are way cooler than whole grains so I joined the Aging and Vascular Physiology lab at University of Oregon.
What NAA means to me: Attending my first NAA conference as a trainee was crucial to my development as a young researcher. Being able to network at conferences has opened new opportunities for collaboration and career paths I hadn't previously explored. Everyone knows each other well and NAA does a great job of engaging members from every career stage.
-
Assistant Professor, Division of Geriatric Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Fun fact: I am a firm believer that conferences should have walk out songs for talks. Mine would be Beyonce's 'Run the World (Girls)'.
What NAA means to me: I "grew up" in the NAA Society, attending every year since I was a master's student in 2014. NAA has been my 'research home' for nearly a decade. NAA is the place where I found my postdoctoral fellowship, developed my career interests... and made lifelong friends along the way.
Twitter: @dublyn314
-
Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Pennsylvania
Fun fact: I was introduced to the intricate links between genetics, environment (particularly nutrition) and vascular disease during my MSc in Human Nutrition. The topic fascinated me and led me to pursue a PhD in Genetic Epidemiology, with the intention of applying my area of expertise to advance vascular research.
Why I joined NAA’s EIC: To help foster novel approaches and connections for early-career investigators who are also navigating this field.
What NAA means to me: To me, the NAA embodies a dynamic community where the future of vascular research is collectively shaped. It’s about having an active role in shaping an environment that enhances the experiences of early career investigators.
Twitter: @mariejoedib
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marie-joe-dib-57877073/
-
PhD student, Department of Kinesiology, University of Maryland, College Park
Fun fact: I am a second year PhD student focusing on vascular function in women
What EIC and NAA means to me: I appreciate the focus on career development by both the NAA and EIC.
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cynthia-weiner-a138b5246
-
Assistant Professor, Division of Renal Diseases and Hypertension, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Fun fact: I spent most of my time growing up immersed in the arts –ballet, violin, acting, musical theater – but I also loved science and medicine. I think what most drew me to research is that it both fulfills my interest in scientific inquiry while fostering creativity!
What NAA means to me: NAA conferences showcase excellent science that is highly relevant to my research, but in an environment that's more supportive and conducive to building strong professional relationships. Each time I have attended, I have come back with new connections and friends, inspired, and excited to do more science.
Twitter: @viennabrunt
-
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Health and Human Physiology, University of Iowa
Fun fact: I was born and raised in Wales, UK, and completed my PhD in Australia.
What NAA means to me: NAA is the most accessible conference for those interested in studying blood pressure and arterial function.
Twitter: @mkarmstrong991
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/matthew-k-armstrong-phd-35bb94243
-
Assistant Professor, Department of Kinesiology, Iowa State University
Fun fact: Not only can you pick up a pulse by placing a tonometry probe over my descending aorta, but you can get an operator index >90.
Why I joined NAA’s EIC: I am excited about the EIC as it presents a unique platform for early career investigators to network with both peers and established ‘big names’ in the field within a close-knit and welcoming conference environment.
What NAA means to me: Some of my greatest conference memories come from attending NAA (and the associated socials!) and I look forward to trying to increase engagement among current attendees and hopeful new attendees as well!
Twitter: @e_lefferts
-
Assistant Research Professor, Department of Integrative Physioogy, University of Colorado Boulder
Fun fact: I did not study arterial function during graduate school but made the pivot for my postdoc and couldn't imagine working in another field!
What NAA means to me: A highly supportive group of like-minded individuals with a passion for studying arterial health
Twitter: @ZachSClayton