Senior Research Program Coordinator, Echocardiography

Anna Zaeske is a passionate researcher looking to further our knowledge of health, disease, and medicine. She graduated from Johns Hopkins University, receiving both Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Molecular and Cellular Biology. During her degree program, she worked in Dr. Kyle Cunningham’s laboratory to study pathogenic yeast, where she adapted new sequencing technologies to assess genetic mechanisms of opportunistic pathogen gut-colonization. In the Mukherjee Lab, she now assists various projects involving advanced imaging technologies and scleroderma risk-prediction, with her primary interest in advancing our understanding, screening, and treatment of cardiopulmonary disease. Anna hopes to continue her education in clinical medicine and academia to someday become an established primary investigator in clinical research. Outside of academia, Anna enjoys running and lifting, hiking, baking, and spending time outside in nature.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Ahmad Daoud is currently a postdoctoral fellow and a medical graduate aiming to become a physician-scientist specializing in cardiovascular diseases. He graduated with honors from medical school in Saudi Arabia before moving to the United Kingdom, where he obtained a master's degree in Cardiovascular Research. He also worked as a clinical fellow in Cardiology at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital. His research focuses on echocardiography, specifically utilizing advanced conventional and speckle-based strain analysis alongside innovative biostatistical methods to identify systemic sclerosis patients at risk for adverse clinical outcomes. In his spare time, he enjoys soccer, billiards, and cooking. 

Postdoctoral Fellow

Rayyan is a postdoctoral fellow aiming to become a physician-researcher in cardiology. He graduated with triple distinctions from the Imperial College School of Medicine in the United Kingdom, where he won numerous awards for teaching and leadership having led his Students’ Union. Building on time spent there contributing to work on AI-ECGs and a keen interest in tech and machine learning, his primary research interests involve utilizing deep learning with ECGs to identify patients at risk for cardiac manifestations of scleroderma. Outside of medicine, he’s an active runner and gym-goer, an avid reader, and a fan of both types of football, following Chelsea F.C. in his native London, and the Seattle Seahawks, where much of his family live and through which he was introduced to the US.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Hoda Mombeini is a postdoctoral research fellow with a robust background in both clinical practice and research in cardiology. Following medical school, she specialized in cardiovascular disease and completed an echocardiography fellowship at Rajaie Heart Center in Iran. Hoda has held positions as an attending cardiologist at Ahvaz University and Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran, where she has actively led and contributed to numerous cardiology research projects. Her primary research interest is the role of advanced echocardiography in the early management of cardiovascular diseases, with a particular focus on left and right ventricular dysfunction and valvular heart disease. Outside of her professional life, she enjoys gym workouts, hiking, baking and singing.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Kaidong Wang is a Postdoctoral Fellow and Data Scientist in the Division of Cardiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research centers on the development of medical impedance devices and the application of multimodal machine learning in diagnostics. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2020. Following this, he completed a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA, where he worked on nanoengineered multichannel immunosensors and machine learning algorithms for acute thrombosis prediction. Currently, Dr. Wang’s work focuses on advancing multimodal machine learning for clinical data analysis and developing next-generation imaging techniques, including ultrasound and electrical impedance tomography, for cardiopulmonary monitoring. In his free time, he enjoys playing tennis and engaging in cardio workouts.

Medical Resident

Lea Goren is a PGY-2 internal medicine resident in the Osler Internal Medicine Residency. She was born and raised in Minnesota and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison for her undergraduate education, where she majored in Genetics. She then returned to MN and attended medical school at the University of Minnesota. Her interests include Cardio-Rheumatology, Cardiac Critical Care, and medical education.  Outside of the hospital, she enjoys cooking, reading, and walking along the Baltimore harbor.

Medical Resident

George grew up in Springfield, VA, and majored in biomedical engineering at the University of Virginia (Go Hoos!). After a gap year of research at the NIH, he attended medical school at George Washington University. There, he discovered his passion for medical imaging, medical education, and patient advocacy. He is currently an Osler resident in the Barker firm. In the Mukherjee lab, George's research focuses on the diagnostic performance of right ventricular parameters in detecting pulmonary hypertension. In his free time, you can find him spending time with family and friends, keeping up with the NFL, working out, visiting a national park, or exploring Baltimore’s diverse food scene.

Medical Student

Anagh Astavans is a 2nd year medical student at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Originally from Maryland, he graduated Summa Cum Laude from University of Maryland College Park in 2024 where he majored in Physiology and Neurobiology. During college he was deeply involved in a vaccine development lab where he studied HIV and Marburg viruses. Since starting medical school, Anagh has taken the lead on numerous clinical research projects in the realms of orthopaedic surgery and cardiology. In the Mukherjee Lab, he is involved in a number of echocardiographic projects focused on scleroderma patients. Outside of school, Anagh enjoys playing tennis, ping-pong, and doing origami.

Medical Student

Jimmy is a current 4th-year medical student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is originally from Salem, NH and received a BS in Biochemistry from Boston College in 2020. Before coming to medical school, Jimmy worked at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital as a translational research technician for two years investigating SARS-CoV-2 viral kinetics and evolution under the supervision of Jonathan Li. He recently matched into the UCSF Internal Medicine Residency Program and is excited to continue on his path to becoming a cardiologist. He joined the Mukherjee lab in the Fall of 2025 focusing on outcomes and predictors of pulmonary hypertension in patients with scleroderma. Outside of the hospital and the lab, Jimmy enjoys exercising, playing volleyball, cooking, and learning new languages.

Medical Student

Vivek Jani is an M.D./Ph.D. candidate at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he is primarily advised by Dr. David Kass. He has extensive expertise in translational research, harnessing advanced imaging techniques and machine learning methods in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). Vivek completed his B.S./M.S. in biomedical engineering at the University of California, San Diego, working in the Functional Cardiovascular Engineering Lab under Dr. Pedro Cabrales. In 2022, Vivek received the prestigious Melvin L. Marcus Early Career Investigator Award in Basic Cardiovascular Sciences from the American Heart Association. He is also the recipient of the NIH/NHLBI F30 grant and the AHA Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. At the Mukherjee Research Lab, Vivek’s research focuses on multiparametric clinical phenotyping of systemic sclerosis patients with HFpEF, a project that earned him the National Scleroderma Foundation Dr. Arnold Postlethwaite Pre-Doctoral Summer Fellowship in 2022. Outside of his academic pursuits, Vivek enjoys exercising, traveling and hiking.

Undergraduate Student Researcher

Arindam Bagga is a sophomore at the Johns Hopkins University. He is currently studying Public Health and has an interest in cardiovascular epidemiology. His research in the Mukherjee lab is studying mortality trends and disparities that occur in different cardiovascular diseases, specially identifying sociodemographic factors and looking at ways to explain and reduce these disparities. He is also involved in studying echocardiographic features in patients with systemic sclerosis who have pulmonary hypertension alongside heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. Outside the lab, Arindam loves to be outdoors, watch movies, and play sports.

Undergraduate Student Researcher

Mark Naddour is an undergraduate studying Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University on the pre-med track. His work in the Mukherjee Lab currently explores the relationship between dysphagia and several multimorbidity clusters. He is interested in the impact of dysphagia on cardiovascular conditions, especially in populations who are at a higher risk of these diseases, like scleroderma patients. Mark plans to go to medical school with an interest in becoming an interventional cardiologist one day. In his free time, he enjoys weightlifting, playing video games, and traveling.

Undergraduate Student Researcher

Ammar Mandviwalla is an undergraduate at the Johns Hopkins University studying Molecular and Cellular Biology on the pre-medical track. In the Mukherjee Lab, he is exploring the relationship between dysphagia and cardiovascular disease, and clinical outcomes in high-risk patient populations. His interests include cardiovascular and pulmonary manifestations of systemic disease and how comorbidities impact hospitalization and disease severity. Ammar plans to pursue medical school with an interest in surgery. In his free time, he enjoys traveling, strength training, and hiking.