Ahmad Abdul Karim

Ralph J. Damiano Jr., MD, is the Evarts A. Graham Professor of Surgery, Chief, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.

Dr. Damiano has authored more than 500 publications and given over 700 lectures/presentations . His major contributions are in the area of myocardial preservation, surgical electrophysiology, and minimally invasive cardiac surgery. He has been Associate Editor of JCTVS and JACC. He was Editor-in-Chief of Innovations from 2008-2018. He has twice been a member of the NIH Bioengineering, Technology and Surgical Sciences Study Section . Dr. Damiano is past president of the Society of Clinical Surgery, the Cardiac Surgical Biology Club, and ISMICS. He was elected to the Board of Directors of the AATS in May 2020.

Dr. Damiano has been a pioneer in the area of minimally invasive cardiac surgery. His developmental work on robotically assisted microsurgery for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) earned him a Computer World Smithsonian Award in June of 1997. Dr. Damiano performed the first robotically assisted surgical procedure in North America, a CABG, in December 1998. He also has been a leader in the field of the surgical treatment of arrhythmias. His team at Washington University is world-renowned for its clinical and basic research on the surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation, and has been continually funded by the NIH in this area for over 40 years. His group has developed the gold-standard surgical procedure, the Cox-Maze IV operation, which has been adopted around the world.

Dr Gerstenfeld is the Chair of the Cardiac Electrophysiology Section and Melvin Scheinman Endowed Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He trained in cardiac electrophysiology at the University of Pennsylvania before joining the faculty at Penn from 2001-2011. Dr Gerstenfeld’s areas of research include signal processing of cardiac arrhythmias, pre-clinical evaluation of new ablation technologies, pre-clinical evaluation of arrhythmia mechanisms, and clinical studies of arrhythmia diagnosis and treatment. He has published > 300 original manuscripts, book chapters and review papers/editorials. He served 7 years on the ABIM Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Board writing committee. He currently serves as the Executive Editor for JACC:Clinical Electrophysiology.

Dr. Hanna is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) David Geffen School of Medicine. He earned his medical degree from the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University in 2013 and his PhD in Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Physiology from UCLA in 2021. After internal medicine residency training at the University of California San Francisco, he completed his cardiology and cardiac electrophysiology fellowship training at UCLA. Upon completion of his training, he joined the faculty at UCLA. He is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in the specialties of Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Disease, and Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology.

In addition to his clinical responsibilities, he heads a research lab focused on better understanding the role of the autonomic nervous system in atrial fibrillation.

Dr. Hamid Ghanbari, MD, MPH, FACC is a cardiovascular electrophysiologist and Associate Professor as well as Director of Innovation in the Frankel Cardiovascular Center at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research focuses on atrial fibrillation (AF) and the integration of advanced signal processing with machine-learning algorithms to predict and improve patient outcomes. Dr. Ghanbari’s work uniquely bridges clinical practice with digital health innovation, leveraging mobile applications and wearable sensors to decipher the complex interplay between cardiac rhythms, patient-reported outcomes, and overall functional status. His work centers around personalized AF management and driving the development of next-generation digital tools that empower both clinicians and patients. Dr. Ghanbari is dedicated to advancing precision medicine in cardiology and fostering collaborative solutions to improve heart health.