Stuart Connolly

Chair, Steering Committee

Population Health Research Institute

Stuart J. Connolly is a Professor of Medicine at McMaster University in Ontario and a Cardiac Electrophysiologist at Hamilton Health Sciences, Ontario. Dr. Connolly holds a Masters degree from Fordham University, New York, and an MD from McGill University in Montreal. He received his specialist training in cardiology at the University of Toronto and at Stanford University. Dr. Connolly became a faculty member at McMaster University in 1983 and was awarded a full professorship in 1994. As well as being an active clinical cardiologist, Dr. Connolly held the position of Director of the Division of Cardiology 2005-2015. He was also appointed as the inaugural holder of the Salim Yusuf Chair in Cardiology at McMaster University during that time.

Dr. Connolly has published more than 350 scientific articles in the field and is currently a member of the editorial boards for a number of prominent Cardiology journals, including Heart, the Journal of Pacing and Electrophysiology, and Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Dr. Connolly's main research interests are focused on the evaluation of treatments for heart rhythm disorders. His academic career has been largely devoted to the design and execution of controlled clinical trials in this area.

Jeff Healey

Lead Principal Investigator

Population Health Research Institute

Jeff Healey is the Director of Arrhythmia services and Professor of Medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario Canada. He is also a clinical trialist, and member of the Population Health Research Institute where he was appointed the PHRI Chair in Cardiology Research. Dr. Healey completed his clinical training in cardiology and electrophysiology at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and completed his Master’s degree in health research methodology at McMaster University.
Currently, Dr. Healey’s clinical activities involve both catheter ablation and pacemaker/ICD implantation. His research involves the conduct of randomized clinical trials and large registries in the fields of atrial fibrillation and cardiac devices. Dr. Healey is the principal investigator and chair of the Canadian Stroke Prevention Intervention Network (CSPIN), a ten-year network grant funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and Industry. CSPIN will conduct a series of clinical trials related to atrial fibrillation and stroke prevention and will also support the development of new Canadian researchers in this field. He is the past co-chair of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society’s Atrial Fibrillation Guidelines Committee and past chair of the Cardiac Care Network of Ontario’s Heart Rhythm Working group.
Dr. Healey has published over 270 manuscripts, including more than 100 in the past 3 years. Dr. Healey has received numerous grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Heart and Stroke Foundation and from industry. Dr. Healey was the lead author of the ASSERT trial, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2012 and demonstrated the increased stroke risk associated with sub-clinical atrial fibrillation detected by pacemakers. Thomson-Reuters recognized ASSERT as the 38th most-cited scientific publication in 2012 (#16 in Medicine). He was also the lead author of the SIMPLE trial, published in the Lancet in 2015, which demonstrated that implantable defibrillators could be safely inserted without performing intra-operative defibrillation testing. The RELY AF Registry is a 15,000-patient worldwide registry, examining the causes, treatment and outcomes in patients with atrial fibrillation.

Marco Alings

Co-Principal Investigator

Working Group Cardiovascular Research Netherlands

Marco Alings, MD, PhD, FESC, is a practicing cardiologist/electrophysiologist and director of the cardiology training program at the Amphia Ziekenhuis, Breda, the Netherlands. After obtaining his PhD in the field of cellular electrophysiology, Dr. Alings earned a medical degree at the University of Amsterdam. He was trained in clinical cardiology at the Academic Medical Center (Amsterdam) and the University Medical Center Utrecht, and served as a post-doctoral fellow in molecular cardiology at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN under the supervision of Prof Dan M Roden.

In 2005, he joined the Board of the Werkgroep Cardiologische Centra Nederland (WCN), an association of 55 cardiovascular research centres, and served as Chair of the WCN from 2007 through 2013.

In 2014, Dr. Alings joined Julius Clinical, an academic clinical research organization specialized in executing global cardiovascular outcomes studies. Dr Alings is a clinical trialist, with a special interest in arrhythmias and stroke prevention, who served as national coordinator for many large international multicentre studies. He was actively involved in the Phase III NOAC stroke prevention trials. His clinical expertise and research experience lie in the areas of arrhythmias, heart failure, stroke prevention, lipid management and cardiac implantable electronic devices.

Renato Lopes

Co-Principal Investigator

Duke University

Renato D. Lopes, MD, MHS, PhD is a Professor of Medicine of the Department of Medicine of the Division of Cardiology at Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, North Carolina, USA, as well as an Professor of Medicine of the Divisions of Internal Medicine and Cardiology in the Federal University of Sao Paulo, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He completed his clinical training at the Federal University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil and his Cardiology Fellowship at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI), serving as Chief Fellow for the research training program during his senior year.

After finishing his Fellowship, Dr. Lopes joined the Faculty at Duke as an Assistant Professor at the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, in the Department of Medicine of the Duke University, in Durham, NC. He is currently the Director of Clinical Events Classification (CEC) and the Co-Director of the Integrated Clinical Events-Safety Surveillance Group. His primary research interests include investigating the impact and outcomes of atrial fibrillation complicating acute coronary syndromes.

He also has an interest in novel antithrombotic therapies for the management of patients with atrial fibrillation and acute coronary syndromes as well as in the discovery of new biomarkers in the field of Cardiology. Dr. Lopes has led several national and international clinical trials and registries. He has also participated in clinical events committees (CECs) for many important clinical trials, serving as CEC chair or Principal Investigator for several of these trials.

Dr. Lopes has worked with other colleagues to establish a Clinical Research Institute in Sao Paulo, Brazil: the Brazilian Clinical Research Institute (BCRI), an academic research organization (ARO). Dr. Lopes is the current BCRI Executive Director and is involved in the conductance of several clinical studies, both national and internationally. The BCRI works together with other important AROs across the globe to develop and share knowledge that improves the care, health, and quality of life of patients in Brazil and Latin America. In addition, Dr. Lopes has also been working closely with the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI), in helping to expand the DGHI to other parts of the world. As a result of this work, he has created the Brazilian Global Health Institute (BGHI) at the Federal University of Sao Paulo, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Christopher Granger

Dr. Christopher Granger is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at Duke University and Director of the Cardiac Care Unit for the Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Granger is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, and of the European Society of Cardiology. He is Associate Editor of the American Heart Journal and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. He is a cardiology section author for Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment. He serves on the publication oversight committee of the American Heart Association and he is chairman of the Advisory Working Group of the American Heart Association Mission: Lifeline program. He is member of the 2011 ACC/AHA STEMI Guidelines Committee. He served on FDA advisory committees on an ad hoc basis. He is on the Board of External Experts of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

Francois Philippon

Dr. Philippon is a cardiologist/electrophysiologist at the Institut universitaire de cardiologie et de pneumologie de Québec (IUCPQ) and Chief of the Cardiology Division at Laval University. His main clinical and research interests are in the fields of cardiac arrhythmias, catheter ablation, cardiac implantable electronic devices, cardiac resynchronization, and lead technologies and complex lead extraction. He is currently president of the Canadian Heart Rhythm Society and member of the board of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Network of Canada (CANet) .

Dr. Philippon trained in internal medicine and cardiology at Laval University. He underwent his interventional electrophysiology training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He then joined l’IUCPQ (Hôpital Laval). He was chief of the electrophysiology laboratory and chief of staff. From 2003 to 2011, he was chief of the cardiology department (cardiology and cardiac surgery) at the Institute. From 2007 to 2013, he served as president of the Quebec Cardiology Network (Réseau Québécois de cardiologie tertiaire, RQCT).

David Birnie

Dr. David Birnie was appointed Staff Cardiac Electrophysiologist at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute in May 2002. He was educated in Scotland and received his medical degree (MB ChB) from Glasgow University in 1990. After completion of Internal Medical training at Aberdeen University he gained his MRCP (UK) in 1993. He spent three years as a cardiology research fellow at Glasgow University from 1993 where he studied the immunology of atherosclerosis and was awarded his PhD equivalent (MD) in 1996. Between 1996 and 2001 he did cardiology training at Glasgow University. He received his Certificate of Completion of Specialist Cardiology Training in 2001. In addition he spent a year in 1999-2000 as a Cardiac Electrophysiology Fellow at the Ottawa Heart Institute. Dr Birnie is the Director of the Arrhythmia Services at UOHI. His clinical focus is on all aspects of cardiac electrophysiology including arrhythmia pharmacotherapy and radiofrequency ablation of simple and complex arrhythmias including atrial fibrillation. He also has a major clinical interest in all aspects of implantation and follow-up of device therapy for arrhythmias. To date he has been involved in over 285 peer-reviewed presentations, publications, and book chapters. His major ongoing research interests are selection and optimization of CRT for heart failure patients, investigating optimal strategies for stroke reduction around device surgery and following AF ablation and cardiac sarcoidosis.

David Conen

David Conen is a trained internist and cardiologist from Basel, Switzerland. He also obtained a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University in Boston, USA. Dr. Conen recently joined the Population Health Research Institute as a clinician scientist. He also is an associate professor of medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
Dr. Conen is a clinical cardiologist with training in performing echocardiography. His research activities involve the conduct of large epidemiological cohort studies to study risk factors for the occurrence of atrial fibrillation and its consequences. He is also interested in clinical trials on therapies to prevent atrial fibrillation and the complications associated with the arrhythmia.
Dr. Conen has published a large number of manuscripts in leading scientific journals. He received numerous prestigious grants in Switzerland and is the Principal Investigator of a large national cohort study to assess the relationship between atrial fibrillation and cognitive decline (Swiss-AF). He also leads another large cohort study of young and healthy individuals (GAPP), with a key focus on assessing risk factors for the development of cardiovascular risk factors in the general population.

Georges H. Mairesse

Cardiologist – Electrophysiologist at the “Cliniques du Sud Luxembourg, Arlon, Belgium”
President of the Medical Council
Founding member of the Medical coordination of the Province of Luxemburg
Past President of the BeHRA (Belgian Heart Rhythm Association)
Founding member of the Belgian Heart Rhythm Meeting (Brussels - 12^th edition in 2018)
Co-organizer or the Luxemburgish Symposium for Arrhythmology (Luxemburg – 20^th edition in 2017)
Member of the health economical committee of EHRA
Member of the scientific documents committee of EHRA
National coordinator for Belgium of the EORP registries on AF
Chair of the EHRA, HRS, APHRS and SOLEACE consensus document on screening for AF
Member of the AF-screen international collaboration.

Valentina Kutyifa

Dr. Valentina Kutyifa is an Associate Professor of Cardiology at the University of Rochester Medical Centre in Rochester NY. Dr. Valentina Kutyifa holds a PhD in cardiac electrophysiology, a Masters degree in health care management, and a certificate in clinical research from Harvard Medical School. Her major research focus in cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death.

Her research work encompasses a wide array of studies related to diabetes, implantable cardioverter–defibrillators, cardiac resynchronization therapy, echocardiography, and technology innovations including the wearable cardioverter–defibrillator, subcutaneous ICD, and left ventricular assist devices.

Juan Benezet Mazuecos

Medical studies in the Faculty of Medicine of Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain (1996-2002). Specialist in Cardiology in 2008 at Hospital Universitario Fundación Jiménez Díaz, Madrid, Spain. Accreditation in the Specialty of Electrophysiology and Arrhythmias by the Spanish Society of Cardiology, June 2013. EHRA certification of professional excellence in the field of Invasive Cardiac Electrophysiology and Cardiac Pacing & Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators, June 2014. PhD in Medicine by Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain (2016). Doctoral thesis extraordinary prize 2017 by Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. Cardiology staff in the Arrhythmia Unit at Hospital Universitario Fundación Jiménez Díaz, Madrid, Spain. Director of the Arrhythmia Unit at Hospital La Luz, Madrid, Spain.

Michael Gold

Dr. Michael Gold is a cardiac electrophysiologist in Charleston, South Carolina and is affiliated with MUSC Health-University Medical Center. He received his medical degree from University of Colorado School of Medicine and his cardiology training at Massachusetts General Hospital IN Boston. He has been in practice for more than 25 years. Dr. Gold accepts several types of health insurance, listed below. He is one of 33 at MUSC Health-University Medical Center who specialize in Cardiovascular Disease.

David Wright

Dr Wright has been consultant cardiologist at Liverpool Heart and Chest for 14 years. He leads the device service which is one of the largest in the UK with over 1500 procedures per year. There is comprehensive remote follow up for all complex device patients and an active complication audit and management program. Research interests include evaluation of new technology eg vagal nerve stimulation and optimisation of current therapies eg CRT. Dr Wright holds senior lecturer posts at Imperial College London and Liverpool University, he chairs the heart failure and arrhythmia section of the Institute of Cardiovascular Medicine and Science and is Speciality Research Group Lead for cardiovascular research in the North West Coast region. A recent interest in cardio-oncology has been supported by his role on the steering committee for the British Society of Cardio-oncology.

John Ip

Dr. John Ip is an electrophysiologist in Lansing Michigan, is affiliated with several hospitals and is Medical Director and Chairman of the Board for Sparrow Clinical Research Institute. He got his medical degree from University of Chicago, completed Internal Medicine at New York University Medical Center and completed Cardiology and Electrophysiology at Mount Sinai Medical Center. He is certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiology & Electrophysiology and a fellow of the American College of Cardiology. He has been principal investigator for over 90 studies, sub investigator on another 14, has been a national Principal Investigator and served on steering and adverse event committees. He also has over 120 publications, abstracts, book chapters and invited reviews and has lectured at American College of Cardiology, Heart Rhythm Society, European Society of Cardiology, CardioStim, and CardioRhythm.

Giuseppe Boriani

Graduation in Medicine and Specialisation in Cardiology at the University of Bologna.
Phylosophy Doctor (PhD) in Cardiovascular Physiopathology at the University of Milan.
Full Professor of Cardiology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and Chief of Cardiology, Modena University Hospital
Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology and of the European Heart Rhythm Society, Member of the Heart Rhythm Society.
Former Member of the Board of the European Heart Rhythm Association and Chair of the Health Economics Committee (2009-2013).
President (2016-2018) of the of AIAC (the Italian Society of Cardiac Pacing and Arrhythmology).
Scientific activity focused on clinical electrophysiology, pace-makers, implantable defibrillators, cardiac resynchronization therapy, atrial fibrillation, antiarrhythmic drugs, health economics and clinical cardiology.
Member of the Editorial board of the European Heart Journal and of the European Journal of Heart Failure.

Christian Sticherling

Prof. Dr. Sticherling heads the Electrophysiology Service of the University Hospital Basel which is one of the leading Swiss EP centers. His clinical and scientific focus is on ablation and device therapy of complex cardiac arrhythmias. From 1998 to 2001, he served as Senior Fellow at the arrhythmia service at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor. He joined the University Hospital Basel in 2003. He has in depth experience with all state-of-the-art ablation technologies including remote magnetic navigation systems and also works as an invasive cardiologist. He his board member of the Swiss Working Group of Pacemaker and Electrophysiology and the Scientific Document Committee of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA). Prof. Sticherling also holds a Master of Health Business Administration (MHBA). After graduation from the University of Heidelberg he completed his internal medicine and cardiology training at the Universitiy hospitals in Munich, Frankfurt, Ann Arbor and Berlin.

Jens Cosedis Nielsen

Jens Cosedis Nielsen is consultant electrophysiologist at the Department of Cardiology, Aarhus University Hospital. In 2011, he was appointed Professor of Electrophysiology at Faculty of Health, Aarhus University. Dr. Nielsen completed his studies at Aarhus University – MD 1991, PhD 2000, and DMSc 2007. He completed his clinical training in cardiology and electrophysiology at various Danish hospitals as well as at Herzzentrum Leipzig, Germany.

Dan Atar

Dan Atar, MD is Head of Research at Oslo University Hospital Ulleval, Dept. of Mecidine, Oslo, Norway, and holds a full Professorship in Cardiology at the University of Oslo, Norway, along with a Visiting Associate Professorship at the Johns Hopkins Unversity, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

Dan Atar trained in Denmark, Switzerland, and the United States before receiving his board certification in Internal Medicine and Cardiology in 1995. His research focuses on myocardial biomarkers, myocardial function, heart failure and cardiovascular pharmacology. He has written over 350 articles and book chapters (H-index 49) and holds the fellowship-titles FESC, FACC, and inaugural FAHA. Dan Atar is the past-Chairman of the ESC Working Group on Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy. He was chairing an EU-FP7 research consortium (“Mitocare”) to study reperfusion injury in STEMI. Dan Atar was on a number of ESC guideline writing committees, amongst others the “2010, 2012 and 2016 ESC Guideline on Atrial Fibrillation” as well as the 2012 STEMI-guideline and the 2018 "Universal Definition of AMI Guideline". In 2012, Dan Atar was elected as Councillor and Board member of the ESC. Further, in 2014, he was elected as Vice-President of the ESC for the 2014-2016 Board. For his scientific achievements, he earned a doctor honoris causa in 2015 and appears on the 2016 Thomson-Reuters list of “the most cited scientists of the world”.

Cecilia Linde

Cecilia Linde is Professor and consultant in Cardiology at the Theme of Heart and Vessels at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden. Her research focuses devices and epidemiology in heart failure. She was a co-chairman in the MUSTIC study, principal investigator of the REVERSE study, which was to first to show a benefit of CRT in mild heart failure. She initiated the KaRen registry of HFpEF patients with Professor Daubert Rennes University. She is co-chairman of the Stockholm PREFERS studies with a focus on epidemiology imaging and biomarkers in HFpEF and hypertension in the search of new drug targets.

Dr Linde is the author of >250 papers, reviews and editorials in a wide variety of fields including CRT, haemodynamic monitoring and HFpEF and she serves on the editorial board of several journals. She has been a board member of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) for which she was scientific programme Chair 2013-2015 and has served on many guidelines writing committees of EHRA and Heart Failure Association She is co-PI of the European CRT survey II covering 11.088 CRT implantations across 42 European countries. She was appointed Doctor Honoris causa at the University of Rennes in April 2015 and Honorary member of the Hungarian Cardiac Society in 2017.

Cecilia Linde is a Board member of the ESC for the period of 2016-2018 and is a member of the Scientific Committee of Heart Rhythm Society. She is treasurer of European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA).

John Camm

John Camm is Professor of Clinical Cardiology at St George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, UK, and Professor of Cardiology at Imperial College, London. His interests include cardiac arrhythmias, atrial fibrillation, stroke prevention, anticoagulation, clinical cardiac electrophysiology, cardiac pacemakers, and risk stratification in post-myocardial infarction, heart failure and cardiomyopathy.
Professor Camm is President of the European Heart Rhythm Association and president of a major UK charity “Arrhythmia Alliance” and co-founder of another highly successful medical charity the “Atrial Fibrillation Association”. He is Editor-in-Chief of European Heart Journal – Case reports and Clinical Cardiology, editorial board member of a further 15 journals, and an Editor of the European Society of Cardiology Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine.
Professor Camm has been involved in the production of numerous guidelines, including the ESC guidelines for the Management of Atrial Fibrillation (chair), the ACC/AHA/ESC guidelines on Ventricular Arrhythmias an Sudden Cardiac Death (chair), and Supraventricular Arrhythmias (member) and the NICE guidelines for the treatment of unstable angina and non-ST elevation ACS (chair), Atrial Fibrillation (member) and Heart Failure (member). Professor Camm was awarded the ESC Gold Medal in 2005 and the British Cardiovascular Society Mackenzie Medal in 2008. He has authored or co-authored over 1150 peer -review papers and edited/authored over 30 books.

Josef Kautzner

Josef Kautzner is a Professor of Medicine at Charles University Medical School I in Prague, Czech Republic. A specialist in cardiology and electrophysiology, he is a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology and a member of the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) and the European Heart Rhythm Association. He is past member of the Board of ESC and past member of the Board of the Czech Society of Cardiology. He is past Chairman of the Working Group on Arrhythmias and Cardiac Pacing of the Czech Society of Cardiology. He is an organizer of multiple educational events, invited member of Faculty for many international meetings and active proctor in the field of catheter ablations. His clinical and research interests include prevention of sudden cardiac death, catheter ablation of ventricular arrhythmias and atrial fibrillation, and cardiac resynchronisation therapy.

Philippe Mabo

Medical course at the Faculty of Medicine of Rennes Internal in cardiology at the CHU of Rennes Additional training in the field of rhythmology at the Lariboisière hospital in Paris and then at the University of Oklahoma (Oklahoma City - USA) Head of clinic and assistant of the hospitals at the CHU of Rennes Hospital practitioner at Rennes University Hospital Professor of the Universities-Hospital Practitioner at the University of Rennes1 and the CHU of Rennes Head of the Department of Cardiology and Vascular Diseases at Rennes University Hospital Medical Officer of CIC-IT 1414 Elected member of the board of directors of the Faculty of Medicine of Rennes President of the CRSP of the Rennes University Hospital Coordinator of the FHU Tech-San Former President of the Rhythmology and Cardiac Pacing Group of the French Society of Cardiology Elected member of the Board of Directors of the Société Française de Cardiologie