Abdulhamied Alfaddagh, MD

Hometown: Kuwait
Medical School: Kuwait University Faculty of Medicine
Clinical Interest: Coronary artery disease
Research Interest: Mechanisms and determinants of coronary plaque progression or regression Abdulhamied (Hamied) earned his Medical Degree from Kuwait University Faculty of Medicine after graduating as the Valedictorian of his class in 2013. After completing internship in Kuwait, Hamied joined the Welty Lab at Harvard Medical School as a research fellow primarily focusing on cardiovascular disease prevention research. He studied the determinants of coronary atherosclerotic plaque progression measured by coronary computed tomography angiography in patients with coronary artery disease. He then went on to complete his residency at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center where he continued to do research in cardiovascular prevention. Hamied is passionate about pursuing a career as an academic cardiologist and a physician-scientist in the field of coronary artery disease.

Rimsky Denis

Hometown: Miami, Florida
Medical School: University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Clinical Interest: Interventional and Structural Cardiology
Research Interest: Health Inequities in Cardiovascular Disease Rimsky was born and raised in Miami, Florida. Prior to beginning his cardiovascular disease fellowship, he completed his internal medicine residency at Brown University in Rhode Island, and his medical school training at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Rimsky holds a masters degree in public health with a concentration in disease prevention, and a masters degree in business administration with a focus in healthcare policy. His research interest pertains to the assessment of health inequities within structural heart disease and interventional cardiology.

Pranoti Hiremath, MD

Hometown: Seattle, WA
Medical School: Harvard Medical School
Clinical Interest: General cardiology and cardiovascular imaging
Research Interest: Medical device and algorithm development, intraoperative imaging During her undergraduate degree in Bioengineering at University of Washington, Pranoti worked on building mobile health tools for global health settings, and on developing strategies for implanting pediatric medical devices. She completed medical training at Harvard Medical School, then returned home for Internal Medicine residency at University of Washington Hospitals, and now she is looking forward to returning to the east coast for Cardiology fellowship! She hopes to integrate clinical experience with knowledge from research to develop tools that can positively impact the care of patients with cardiovascular disease. Pranoti enjoys dancing of all kinds, kickboxing, cooking for friends, and spending time with people she adores.

Daniel Ambinder, M.D.

Hometown: Monsey, New York
Medical School: University of Maryland School of Medicine
Clinical Interest: Cardiovascular disease
Research Interests: Atherosclerotic heart disease and cardiac critical care Daniel Ambinder, M.D., is an interventional/structural cardiology fellow at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. With a passion for medical education, he co-founded CardioNerds. In this capacity, he designed and maintains the CardioNerds website, helped established the CardioNerds Academy, Narratives in Cardiology, Medical Journalism, and Scholarship programs. He is an assistant social media editor for Circulation and co-created and maintains @hopkinsheart.

He received his medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and completed residency in the Osler Program at Johns Hopkins Hospital where he also completed his general cardiology fellowship. Clinical and research interests include resuscitation of cardiac arrest, mechanical circulatory support, coronary and structural heart disease. Follow on Twitter

Jacqueline Latina

Hometown: North Andover, MA
Medical School: Tufts University School of Medicine
Clinical Interest: General cardiology, Non-invasive cardiovascular imaging
Research Interests: Cardiovascular disease Prevention and Epidemiology Jacqueline attended medical school at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, MA, and completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, NY. She subsequently completed an AHA research fellowship working with a multifaceted urban community-based clinical trial and completed a masters degree in biostatistics at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She is interested in preventive cardiology and non-invasive cardiovascular imaging, particularly in regards to heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, atrial fibrillation, valvular heart disease, and ischemic heart disease.

Fabrizio Assis

Hometown: Campina Grande, Brazil
Medical School: Federal University of Paraiba
Clinical Interest: Electrophysiology
Research Interests: Cardiac neuromodulation, ventricular arrhythmias, arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), cardiac implantable devices, innovative technologies, esophageal protection Fabrizio graduated from Medical School at Federal University of Paraiba and completed his training in Cardiology and Electrophysiology at Hospital Beneficencia Portuguesa de Sao Paulo, Brazil. As a postdoctoral research fellow at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Assis was actively involved with multiple research activities, including the development of a new, minimally invasive technique for cardiac neuromodulation, and new strategies of therapeutic hypothermia and esophageal protection against thermal injury during catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation.

Dominik Beer

Hometown: Linz, Austria
Medical School: Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
Clinical Interest: Catheter ablation, cardiac device therapy, and medical education
Research Interests: Conduction system pacing
Dominik Beer was born in Austria and spent the early part of his childhood there. He moved to Pittsburgh with his family and received his undergraduate training at Duquesne University. He received his medical training at PCOM in Philadelphia before moving on to Danville, PA for internal medicine residency and cardiology fellowship at Geisinger Medical Center where he served as chief cardiology fellow. His clinical interests include catheter ablation, cardiac device therapy, and clinical electrophysiology. He is passionate about resident and medical student education.

Usama Daimee

Hometown: Bloomfield Hills, MI
Medical School: Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Clinical Interest: Arrhythmias, catheter ablation, cardiac implantable devices
Research Interests: Clinical outcomes associated with catheter ablation procedures and cardiac implantable devices; prospective registries and clinical trials

Richard Jones II

Chief Fellow
Hometown: Goldsboro, NC
Medical School: Florida State University
Clinical Interest: Electrophysiology
Research Interests: Arrhythmia prevention and treatment
Richard attended Florida State University College of Medicine after obtaining a Master’s degree in Pharmacology from Georgetown University. He completed residency and a chief resident year at Johns Hopkins Bayview. He is interested in the prevention and treatment of cardiac arrhythmias.

Weijia Wang

Hometown: Nanjing, China
Medical School: Zhejiang University, School of Medicine
Clinical Interest: Cardiac electrophysiology, general cardiology
Research Interests: Epidemiology, inherited heart disease, atrial fibrillation I attended Zhejiang University, School of Medicine in Hangzhou, China. I completed residency at Tufts Medical Center and cardiology fellowship at UMass. Between residency and fellowship, I obtained a Master’s degree in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins University. I am interested in the electrophysiology, general cardiology, and epidemiology.

Eunice Yang

Hometown: St. Paul, Minnesota
Medical School: Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Clinical Interest: Electrophysiology and advanced imaging
Research Interests: The application of advanced imaging in interventions within electrophysiology. Myocardial fibrosis and arrhythmogenesis.
Eunice Yang is a postdoctoral clinical and research fellow in cardiology at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She received her undergraduate degree with honors in biochemical sciences at Harvard College and completed both her medical school training and internal medicine residency at Johns Hopkins. Her clinical interests are multi-modality cardiovascular imaging and electrophysiology. Dr. Yang’s research interests involve myocardial fibrosis and arrhythmogenesis. Her long-term career aspiration is to lead an integrated clinic and laboratory that utilizes advanced cardiac imaging and electrophysiology techniques for detection of early stage fibrosis and localization of arrhythmogenic foci. She hopes to ultimately couple these translational efforts with basic science work studying pathways that promote fibrosis in the myocardium that can contribute to arrhythmias, with a particular eye out for interventions that prevent or reverse this process.

Miguel Pinilla Vera

Hometown: Colombia, South America
Medical School: Javeriana University School of Medicine
Clinical Interest: Cardiovascular disease
Research Interests: Cardiomyocyte biology in heart failure and cardiac regeneration
Miguel Pinilla Vera was born and raised in Colombia, South America. He went to medical school at Javeriana University School of Medicine, in Bogota. Miguel developed an early interest in cardiovascular physiology during medical school. He performed his post-doctoral fellowship training in laboratory research at Duke University Medical Center and Brigham and Women's Hospital before doing Internal Medicine residency at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He plans to continue to develop a career in basic laboratory research involving cardiomyocyte biology in heart failure and cardiac regeneration.

Kristin Stawiarski

Hometown: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Medical School: Saba University School of Medicine
Clinical Interest: Heart failure biomarkers, left ventricular assist devices
Research Interests: Heart failure biomarkers, left ventricular assist devices
Kristin Stawiarski attended Saba University School of Medicine and subsequently completed her Internal Medicine residency and Cardiology fellowship at Yale University/Bridgeport Hospital. She has joined Johns Hopkins this year to complete her training in advanced heart failure and transplant. She is interested to continue her research on heart failure biomarkers and their application to left ventricular assist devices in follow up to her most recent publication entitled “Impact of Perioperative Lymphopenia on Survival Following LVAD Placement”.

Anum Minhas, M.D., M.H.S.

Chief Fellow
Hometown: Memphis, TN
Medical School: Duke University
Clinical Interest: Non-invasive cardiovascular imaging, general cardiology
Research Interests: CT, stress cardiomyopathy, preoperative medicine
Dr. Anum Minhas is the chief cardiology fellow and interested in cardiovascular disease in the setting of pregnancy and using novel cardiac imaging techniques to enhance understanding of disease pathophysiology. She has completed several projects at the intersection of adverse pregnancy outcomes (preeclampsia and gestational diabetes) and cardiovascular disease, using cardiac MRI and echocardiogram data. She also designed and completed a one-year subspecialty fellowship in Cardio-Obstetrics and obtained a Master of Health Science in Cardiovascular and Clinical Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health (JHSPH). During her training she has received support from the JHSPH Cardiovascular Epidemiology T32 training grant, the Dlabal Clinical Research Award, the Trudy Bush Fund, the Charlotte Ferencz Award, The Lou and Nancy Grasmick Endowed Research Fellowship, the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Endowed Fellowship and extramural and institutional research grants.

Gabriel Shaya

Hometown: Baltimore, MD
Medical School: University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Clinical Interest: Preventive cardiology, cardiovascular imaging
Research Interest: Cardiovascular epidemiology, cardiovascular risk assessment
Gabriel earned both his Medical Degree and Masters of Public Health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He went on to complete his residency in Internal Medicine at the New York Presbyterian – Weill Cornell Medical Center. He has returned to his hometown of Baltimore for Cardiology fellowship with the intent of pursuing a career as an academic cardiologist. His clinical and research interests center on the refinement of cardiovascular risk assessment with the goal of tailoring preventive therapies to avert adverse cardiovascular events before they happen.

Ethan Tumarkin

Hometown: Toronto, Canada
Medical School: University of Toronto
Clinical Interest: Heart Failure, valvular heart disease
Research Interests: Polymer material integration into biological and non-biological tissues, anti-thrombotic and anti-microbial surfaces.
Ethan began his university studies in Astronomy and Physics but soon changed his focus to chemistry. He completed his PhD at the University of Toronto on the Microfluidic studies of biological and chemical processes. He subsequently completed both his medical school and internal medicine training in Toronto. Throughout residency he found excitement working in the fast-paced environment of a coronary care unit. His research interests have been focused on the design and integration of new materials into cardiovascular research. During fellowship he developed an interest in advanced echo imaging to better understand valvular pathology.

Rick Carrick

Hometown: Wakefield, MA
Medical School: University of Vermont College of Medicine
Clinical Interests: Critical Care, Electrophysiology
Research Interests: Computational modeling and simulation in electrophysiology
Rick grew up in New England, attended medical school at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, and completed his internal medicine residency at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. He plans to pursue a career that combines clinical cardiology with his interest in computational modeling and simulation based research. Recent projects have focused on using machine learning to develop prediction models for new onset atrial fibrillation in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy patients. Outside of medicine, he enjoys running, painting, and playing music.

Keva Garg

Hometown: Bethesda, Maryland
Medical School: Georgetown University School of Medicine
Clinical Interests: Preventative Cardiology
Research Interests: HIV related cardiac disease
Keva is a Maryland native. She earned her undergraduate degree at Columbia University, and returned to the area for her masters and medical degree from Georgetown University. She completed her residency at Duke University Hospital, and has returned home to complete her training in cardiology. Her clinical passion lies in preventative cardiology, with a special academic interest in HIV’s impact on the risk for ischemic cardiac disease. Ultimately, she hopes to work as an academic cardiologist, working to improve preventative cardiac care to marginalized populations locally and abroad.

Arune Gulati

Hometown: Kingston, NY
Medical School: University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine
Clinical Interests: Heart Failure, LVAD, RV Failure, Pulmonary Hypertension
Research Interests: RHF After LVAD
Arune is a native New Yorker who has progressively inched southward for training, beginning with medical school at Penn followed by residency at JHH. Since coming to Hopkins, he has developed a clinical and research interest in the hemodynamics of LVAD and particularly RHF after LVAD. He was fortunate enough to meet his wife and co-fellow, Alison, in medical school and is currently enjoying the suburb life with their rambunctious toddler, Elliott. Outside of medicine, he is passionate about the Baltimore food scene and always making sure his next meal is better than his last.

Esra Gucuk Ipek

Hometown: Ankara, Turkey
Medical School: Gazi University School of Medicine
Clinical Interests: Advanced Cardiac Imaging
Research Interests: Atrial remodeling using multimodality imaging and associations with outcome
I was born and raised in Ankara, Turkey where I completed my medical education followed by post-graduate training in Cardiology. After spending 3 months exploring cardiac MRI at King’s College of London in UK, I moved to US and pursued research first at UCSF, later at Johns Hopkins University where I studied atrial remodeling using strain echocardiography and cardiac MRI. Before returning Baltimore for Cardiology fellowship, I completed internal medicine residency at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine. My research interests include identifying factors that contribute adverse atrial remodeling using multimodality imaging and associations with clinical outcome.

Jana Lovell

Hometown: Lutherville, MD
Medical School: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Clinical Interests: Advanced Heart Failure
Research Interests: Translational research, heart failure, immunology
Jana was born and raised in Baltimore, MD. She completed medical school at Johns Hopkins. During medical school, she participated in translational research involving primary immunodeficiency disorders through the NIH Medical Research Scholars Program. She then completed internal medicine training in the Osler Medical Residency Program. Her clinical and research interests include advanced heart failure and immunology.

Mariam Meddeb

Hometown: Tunis, Tunisia; Strasborug, France
Medical School: University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France
Clinical Interests: Cardiac critical care, heart failure
Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms of decompensated heart failure, novel therapeutic approaches for the acutely failing heart, gene editing
Mariam earned her medical degree and Master of Science at the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France, where she also completed clinical pathology training and cultivated her passion for translational research. Pursuing her interest in becoming a physician scientist, Mariam moved to the United States in 2016 where she completed internal medicine residency at the University of Maryland midtown, while working on gene editing approaches. After her general Cardiology fellowship, she intends to pursue additional training in cardiac critical care. For her research, she is interested in working on better understanding the molecular mechanisms of the acutely failing heart and proposing novel therapeutic approaches for heart failure.

Martin Tibuakuu

Hometown: Jirapa, Ghana
Medical School: Université d'Alger (Algiers, Algeria)
Clinical Interests: Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease: Prevention and Interventional Cardiology
Research Interests: Preventive cardiology
Martin was born and raised in Ghana, West Africa. After completing his medical training, he pursued a Master of Public Health degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a concentration in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. He then continued as a research fellow at the Department of Epidemiology and the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease at Johns Hopkins. His research focused on novel risk factors contributing to cardiovascular disease risk such as Vitamin D deficiency, inflammation, frailty and low muscle mass (sarcopenia). Martin was also a fellow at the AHA Tobacco Regulatory and Addiction Center (A-TRAC) where he worked on research focused on tobacco regulatory science from a cardiovascular perspective. He received the AHA Paul Dudley White International Scholar Award for his research on “Patient-Reported Outcomes, Resource Utilization and Healthcare Expenditures across the Three Major Atherosclerotic Diseases”. He enjoys spending time with family, friends and playing soccer.

Alison Wand

Hometown: Wallingford, PA
Medical School: University of Pennsylvania
Clinical Interests: Heart Failure, Cardiac Imaging
Research Interests: Cardiac sarcoidosis, inflammatory cardiomyopathies
Ali grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and stayed nearby to complete college and medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. She came to Baltimore to begin internal medicine training in the Osler Medical Residency Program and served an additional year as an Assistant Chief of Service. Her clinical and research interests include advanced heart failure and inflammatory cardiomyopathies, with a specific focus on cardiac sarcoidosis. She also has a passion for medical education and mentoring. Outside of the hospital, Ali enjoys reading, listening to podcasts, and spending as much time as possible with her husband and their adorable son.

Renato Quispe Ayala, M.D.

Hometown: Lima, Peru
Medical School: Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (Lima, Peru)
Clinical Interest: General Cardiology, Prevention, Heart Failure
Research Interest: Prevention, lipids, risk modeling, big-data, machine learning/artificial intelligence, genomics
Dr. Renato Quispe is a third-year cardiology fellow interested in preventive cardiology and lipidology. Using big-data and epidemiologic approaches, his research has focused on the role of coronary calcium score in refining prediction of cardiovascular risk, the metabolism of different lipoproteins and its effect on atherosclerosis, and the importance of emerging lipid markers such as remnant particles and triglyceride-rich lipoproteins. Dr. Quispe obtained a Master of Health Science in Graduate Training in Clinical Investigation from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health (JHSPH) in 2016. He has been a finalist for the AHA Elizabeth Barrett-Connor Research Award in 2018 and Samuel A. Levine Young Investigator Award in 2020. Dr. Quispe is currently pursuing a PhD degree in Clinical Investigation at JHSPH, with a focus on machine learning/artificial intelligence and genomics in cardiovascular disease. His training and research have been supported by the Ruth L. Kirschstein Institutional Research Training Program (T32) and the Trone Family Foundation.

Ilton Cubero Salazar

Hometown: Bluffton, South Carolina
Medical School: Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine
Clinical Interest: Heart Failure
Research Interest: Mechanisms underlying myocardial hypertrophy and heart failure, HFpEF
Ilton attended medical school at Dartmouth during which time he completed a research year at the Seidman laboratory in Boston funded by the Sarnoff Research Fellowship. He subsequently completed an internal medicine residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. His research interest has been focused around genetic modifiers of the hypertrophic response in animal models and in genetic variants associated with hypertrophy and heart failure.

Marc Engels

Hometown: Willemstad, Curaçao
Medical School: Leiden University
Clinical Interest: Electrophysiology
Research Interest: Atrial fibrillation, sudden cardiac death
Marc was born and raised in Curaçao, a small island in the Caribbean. He graduated from medical school at Leiden University in the Netherlands and completed PhD training there as well. During his PhD training he focused on arrhythmia research and specifically shockless defibrillation using optogenetics. He subsequently moved to the US for residency training at Emory University. He plans to pursue a career in cardiac electrophysiology.

Paul Scheel

Hometown: Ellicott City, MD
Medical School: Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine
Clinical Interest: Heart failure, transplant, critical care cardiology
Research Interest: Genetic cardiomyopathies, durable mechanical support
Paul is a Baltimore native but left the Charm City for undergraduate (University of Notre Dame) and medical school education prior to returning for residency in the Osler Medical Residency Program at Johns Hopkins. He has been involved in research within the ARVC and LVAD Programs at Johns Hopkins and has a wider interest in heart failure and cardiac transplant. He plans on pursing an academic cardiology career focusing on clinical research after completing an advanced heart failure and transplant fellowship. Outside of his clinical and academic pursuits, he enjoys playing basketball, cooking new dishes and traveling the world whenever possible.

Nick Smith

Hometown: Dover-Foxcroft, Maine
Medical School: Boston University School of Medicine
Clinical Interest: Cardiology critical care
Research Interest: Cardiogenic shock, Emergency Management Simulation in Medical Education
Nick grew up in Northern Maine and attended Boston University School of Medicine by way of Bowdoin College, where he graduated with a degree in Neuroscience in 2009. He joined the Osler Medical Residency in 2016 as an intern on the Janeway Firm. He developed a passion for critical care cardiology and is currently in a non-ACGME year focused on cardiology critical care. He is additionally passionate about medical student and resident education, specifically the role of simulation, and is a simulation educator with the critical care clerkship students and lead the PGY-1 Emergency Management curriculum in his senior year of residency. Outside of cardiology he dares to be an average climber, runner, and cyclist, and has been called both a catastrophic cook and an insufferable dinner guest by nearly all of his peers. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his fiancé, Christina.

Rachit (Rick) Vakil

Hometown: Manahawkin, NJ
Medical School: Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Clinical Interest: Electrophysiology, heart failure
Research Interest: Obesity related cardiovascular comorbidities, prevention, epidemiology
Rachit attended Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School for medical training. He received his Master of Public Health degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he focused on epidemiology and biostatistics. He completed his internal medicine training in the Osler Residency Program at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is interested in cardiovascular epidemiology with a focus on risk stratification of sudden cardiac death. After general cardiology, he plans to pursue training in cardiac electrophysiology. Outside of the hospital he enjoys traveling, trying new foods, and strolling down to the harbor with his wife and young daughter to get gelato.