New Members Presenting in Charleston

Dr. Larry Allen grew up in Morrison, Colorado, and was a Boettcher Scholar and Outstanding Graduate at University of Colorado Boulder 1990-1994. He then did Peace Corps in Ghana 1994-1996 and was the first Boettcher Foundation Fellow 1996-1997. His medical training included Harvard Medical School 1997-2001, MGH Medicine Residency 2001-2004, Duke Cardiology Fellowship 2004-2007, and Duke Advanced Heart Failure and Transplantation training 2007-2008. He has been CU School of Medicine faculty at the Anschutz Medical Campus since 2008. He is currently the Division Head for Cardiology (2022-) and Co-Director of the Colorado Program for Patient Centered Decisions (2012-) at the University of Colorado. His research interests include improving equitable delivery of evidence-based heart failure treatments, anticipating progression into Stage D heart failure, and helping end-stage patients make tough choices regarding invasive therapies and palliative options. Dr. Allen recently completed the PCORI-funded DECIDE-LVAD trial on decision making and the AHA-funded EPIC-HF trial on patient engagement, and is the principal investigator for the PCORI I-I-CAPTAIN multicenter trial of heart failure medication prescribing. Meanwhile, Dr. Allen keeps himself clinically grounded by regularly seeing patients with heart failure, LVADs, and transplants, and is consistently voted as one of Denver’s “Top Doctors” in 5280 Magazine.

Susan Cheng, MD, MMSc, MPH is the Erika J. Glazer Chair in Women’s Cardiovascular Health and Population Science, director of the Institute for Research on Healthy Aging, and director of Public Health Research in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai. Dr. Cheng is a cardiologist, echocardiographer, and clinician-scientist who leads research programs aimed at uncovering the drivers of cardiovascular aging in women and men. She received her bachelor's degree from Harvard College, medical degree from McMaster University, master's of medical science from MIT, and master’s of public health from Harvard. Dr. Cheng completed internal medicine training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and cardiology training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is co-chair of the Ancillary Studies Steering Committee and co-director of the Echocardiography Laboratory at the Framingham Heart Study. Dr. Cheng has served on the editorial boards of major cardiovascular and imaging journals as well as on leadership committees for the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology. She has authored over 380 research manuscripts and her work has been supported by continuous funding from the NIH. 

Dr. Jennifer H. Mieres is a Professor of Cardiology and Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs at the
Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra /Northwell. A graduate of Bennington College and Boston
University School of Medicine. Dr Mieres did her Internal medicine, Chief Residency and
Cardiology training at Mt Sinai West in NYC (formerly St Luke’s Roosevelt Medical Center). She
is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology (ACC),) the American Heart Association
(AHA) and a Master of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC).
She is currently a Senior Vice President of Northwell Health’s, Center for Equity of Care, and
provides strategic guidance for Northwell’s diversity and health equity initiatives and serves as
the health system’s first Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer. She is a member of the Katz
Institute for Women’s Health Steering Committee. Under her leadership, Northwell health has
been recognized nationally for its Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity programs, recognized.
by Diversity Inc as the #1 health system for three consecutive years (2020 to 2022) and was
inducted into the Diversity Inc. Hall of Fame in 5-2023.
As a clinician scientist, she has authored over 70 publications in peer review journals. Dr Mieres is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the national 2022 American Heart Association’s Physician of the Year award and the national 2022 Distinguished Service Award from the American College of Cardiology.

Dr. Sean Wu is currently the Vice Chair for Academic Affairs in the Department of Medicine and Section Chief for Basic and Translational Research in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He is also the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Scholar and Associate Director at the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute. He completed his undergraduate degrees in Biological Sciences and Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University in 1992 and his MD and PhD degrees at Duke University School of Medicine in 1999. After completing residency at Duke University Hospital, he moved to Boston and completed a general cardiology fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School and a research fellowship at the Boston Children’s Hospital prior to becoming an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital in 2009. His research is dedicated to the identification of molecular mechanisms regulating cardiac lineage commitment during embryonic development and the use of pluripotent stem cells in cardiac disease modeling and regenerative tissue engineering. His laboratory has published more than 160 primary research and review articles, editorials, books and book chapters. He holds membership in the American Society for Clinical Investigation and is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology. He was named the Kenneth D. Bloch Memorial Lecturer at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Session in 2018. His research work has been supported by numerous awards from the AHA including pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, Grant-in-Aid, and the Established Instigator Award. In addition, his lab has also been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, NIH Director’s New Innovator Awards, California Institutes for Regenerative Medicine, GlaxoSmithKline Foundation, the NIH Director Pioneer Award, the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the Additional Ventures Foundation, and Sanofi USA, among others. He is currently the President of the AHA Bay Area Board of Directors and was recently the chairperson of the Bioethics Subcommittee of the AHA National Research Committee as well as the chairperson for the Early Career Committee of the AHA Basic Cardiovascular Sciences Council. 

Stephen Chan, MD, PhD, serves as the Vitalant Chair in Vascular Medicine, Professor of Medicine, and Director of the Vascular Medicine Institute (VMI) at the University of Pittsburgh, a multi-disciplinary research institute with 40 principal and affiliated faculty and yearly research expenditures ~$25M. Dr. Chan is a physician-scientist and cardiologist who leads a basic and translational research program and clinical center investigating the mechanisms of pulmonary hypertension (PH). Dr. Chan’s research uses computational theory to study gene network architecture and couples these insights with in vivo physiology and disease. By developing in silico network biology approaches, Dr. Chan defined the systems-level functions of non-coding RNAs involving metabolism, mechanosignaling, and inflammation as root causes of pulmonary hypertension (PH). Dr. Chan has published over 140 peer-reviewed publications. He has carried grants as PI, including NIH R-level and U-level grants, the AHA Established Investigator Award, and WoodNext Foundation Awards. He is the founder of Syhale Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing next generation therapies for cardiopulmonary vascular disease. He is an elected Fellow of the AHA, ASCI, and the AAP; has served on the AHA 3CPR Council Leadership Committee and ATS Pulmonary Circulation Leadership Committee, and recently served as Chair of the NIH RIBT study section.

Jeffrey J. Goldberger, M.D., M.B.A. is Professor of Medicine and was Chief of the Cardiovascular Division at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine from 2015-2023. He now serves as the Director of the Center for Atrial Fibrillation. Dr. Goldberger received his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine after his Bachelor of Science degree from MIT. He completed his medical residency training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx Municipal Hospital Center and his cardiology training and fellowship in electrophysiology at the University of California, San Francisco. In 1990, he joined the faculty of Northwestern University where he served in multiple leadership roles including Director of Cardiac Electrophysiology. He completed his MBA at Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management in 1997. His research has focused on novel and innovative diagnostic and treatment approaches for patients with arrhythmias, particularly atrial fibrillation and prevention of sudden cardiac death. He has over 300 publications and multiple grants from the National Institute of Health. Dr. Goldberger is a leading authority in cardiac arrhythmias and autonomic nervous system effects on cardiac electrophysiology. 

Laurence S. Sperling, M.D., FACC, FAHA, FACP, MASPC is the Founder and was the Director of The Heart Disease Prevention Center at Emory (1997-2019).  He is currently the Katz Professor in Preventive Cardiology at the Emory University School of Medicine, and Professor of Global Health in the Rollins School of Public Health. Dr. Sperling is the current Executive Director of Million Hearts for the Division of Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He served as the President of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology from 2014-2016, served on the writing committee of 2018 the ACC/ AHA Guideline on the Management on Blood Cholesterol, and serves as Associate Editor for the American Journal of Preventive Cardiology, and the Chair of the World Heart Federation writing group on the Roadmap for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention among People Living with Diabetes. He served on the Writing Committee of the American Heart Association Cardiovascular Kidney Metabolic Health (CKMH) Initiative which has brought forth the importance of an integrated approach to prevention and treatment in this high risk population.

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Dr. Sperling founded (in 2004) and directs the first and only LDL apheresis program in the state of Georgia, and was the PI for The National FH Registry site at Emory. He has received awards for excellence in both teaching (including 4 Apple Awards and The Dean’s Teaching Award) and mentorship (Emory SOM 2018 Mentorship Award). He received the Pioneer in Prevention Award from the American Society of Preventive Cardiology in 2023.  He has been an investigator in a number of important clinical trials and has authored over 400 manuscripts, abstracts, and book chapters.