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Current Officers

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Jane Freedman, MD
Barry London, MD, PhD
PRESIDENT
VICE PRESIDENT
Dr. Barry London is Director of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and of the Abboud Cardiovascular Research Center at the University of Iowa. His laboratory studies the molecular and genetic basis of arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death using animal models, families with inherited arrhythmia syndromes, and patient cohorts with heart failure. He has held near continuous funding from the NIH through his career, including a Pioneer Award. He is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the Association of University Cardiologists, and the American Clinical and Climatological Association. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Heart Association from 2014 to 2022.
Dr. Jane Freedman is the Gladys Parkinson Stahlman Professor of Cardiovascular Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Director of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and Physician-in-Chief of the Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute. She currently oversees two research programs; the first is a basic science laboratory that examines the role of immunity, infection, and inflammation on atherothrombotic disease. The second facility uses high-throughput, nano-chip, and RNA-seq technologies to study gene expression and provide large scale transcriptomic and proteomic translational data for a wide range of clinical and translational projects.

Charles J. Lowenstein, MD
SECRETARY / TREASURER
Dr. Lowenstein is the Michel Mirowski, MD Professor of Cardiology and the Chief of Cardiology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His laboratory studies the genetic basis of vascular diseases. Dr. Lowenstein’s research team uses genetic studies of humans to identify novel genetic loci linked to vascular inflammation and thrombosis, and then develops cellular and animal models to discover new pathways of vascular inflammation and thrombosis. Dr. Lowenstein is a member of the Sarnoff Cardiovascular Research Foundation, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of Professors of Cardiology, and the Association of University Cardiologists.

Sumeet S. Chugh, MD
Immediate Past-President
1 year term
Dr. Chugh is the Pauline and Harold Price Professor of Cardiac Electrophysiology, Associate Director, of the Smidt Heart Institute, Medical Director of the Heart Rhythm Center and Director, Division of Artificial Intelligence, Dept of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles. He is a clinical cardiac electrophysiologist and his research efforts have focused on improving prediction and prevention of sudden cardiac arrest. In the last two decades, he has founded and led a research cooperative of emergency medical services, hospitals and the medical examiner network in Oregon and California that studies a total population of 1.8 million residents. This effort resulted in a data repository of sudden cardiac arrest patients linked to a biobank that has been mined for mechanisms and predictors of this condition, now in its 21st year. His group has recently published a novel clinical risk prediction score as well as unique plasma and genomic biomarkers that are being explored as tools to enhance management and prevention of sudden cardiac death. Dr Chugh is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and has received the Howard Morgan Award for distinguished achievements in cardiovascular research, the Simon Dack Award from the American College of Cardiology and the Douglas P Zipes lectureship award from the Heart Rhythm Society. He is the immediate Past-President of the Cardiac Electrophysiology Society. Dr. Chugh is funded by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute and has published over 240 peer-reviewed scientific papers (citations >80,000, Dec 2022).

Karol Watson, MD, PhD
COUNCILOR
3rd year of 3 year term
Dr. Karol E. Watson is Professor of Medicine / Cardiology and the John C. Mazziotta Term Chair in Medicine at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She was honored to be named Cardiologist of the Year, by the California chapter of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) for 2017-18. Dr. Watson is director of the UCLA Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Health Program, Co- Director of the UCLA Program in Preventative Cardiology, and director of the UCLA Cardiology Fellowship. She is a Principal Investigator for several large NIH studies and her research focuses on prevention of heart disease, vascular calcification, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and cardiovascular disparities.

Joseph C. Wu, M.D. Ph.D.

Sana Al-Khatib, M.D.
COUNCILOR
2nd year of 3 year term
COUNCILOR
1st year of 3 year term
Dr. Joseph C. Wu is Director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and the Simon H. Stertzer, MD, Professor of Medicine and Radiology. Dr. Wu received his medical degree from Yale. He completed his medicine internship, residency, and cardiology fellowship (STAR program) at UCLA. He obtained his PhD in the Department of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology with Dr. Sam Sanjiv Gambhir. His clinical interests include adult congenital heart disease and cardiovascular imaging.
His lab works on biological mechanisms of patient-specific and disease-specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).
Dr. Sana M. Al-Khatib is a tenured Professor of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, a board-certified clinical electrophysiologist and an experienced clinical researcher in cardiac arrhythmias. She is currently the Director of the Fellowship Program at the Duke Clinical Research Institute. As a graduate of the NIH-funded Clinical Research Training Program, she is one of a few electrophysiologists nationwide with expertise in quantitative research methods. Her clinical expertise is in sudden cardiac death prevention, atrial fibrillation and ventricular arrhythmias, and implantable cardiac devices. Her research expertise lies in the design and conduct of clinical trials, outcomes research, and cost-effectiveness analyses