RISE @ ESC CONGRESS 2026
Faculty
Discover who will guide your learning at this year’s conference.
The RISE @ ESC Congress 2026 faculty is a distinguished group of leaders shaping the future of cardiology. Representing a diverse and global network of experts, they are advancing clinical practice and research while championing the next generation of women in cardiology.
Each faculty member brings unique perspectives, experience, and a strong commitment to leadership, mentorship, and innovation. Get to know the individuals who are guiding and inspiring discussions, leading practical sessions, and sharing strategies for success on the global stage.
More faculty announcements coming soon!
The Program Directors
Pamela Douglas, MD
USA
Pamela S Douglas, MD is the Ursula Geller Distinguished Professor of Research in Cardiovascular Diseases in the Department of Medicine at Duke University.
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She has led several landmark multicenter randomized clinical trials and outcomes research studies and is renowned for her scientific and policy work in improving the quality and appropriateness of imaging in clinical care, clinical trials, and registries. Dr Douglas helped to establish several important specialty areas including heart disease in women, sports cardiology, and cardio-oncology.
Dr. Douglas’ wealth of experience includes authorship of over 650 peer reviewed manuscripts and 30 practice guidelines, service as the President of the American College of Cardiology, President of the American Society of Echocardiography, and Chief of Cardiology at both the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Duke University.
She has served on the External Advisory Council of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the Scientific Advisory Boards of the National Space Biomedical Institute and the Patient Advocate Foundation. Among her most cherished recognitions are the naming in her honor of the American College of Cardiology’s Distinguished Leadership Award in Diversity and Inclusion and the American Society of Echocardiography’s Research Scholar Award.
María Rubini, MD
Spain
Associate Professor Rubini is a researcher at the Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research in Madrid and Clinical Cardiology Practitioner at the Ascires Biomedical Group in Valencia. Her research focuses on cardiovascular gender disparities and preventive cardiology.
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Over the last 12 years, Associate Professor Rubini was actively involved in the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). As Chairperson of the 2024-2026 ESC Gender Task Force, she plans to support the comprehensive application of gender policy across ESC activities, foster networks and partnerships to strengthen capacity and ensure visibility for ESC gender initiatives. She is also committed to raising awareness, integrate sex- and gender-specific considerations into care, and advocate for greater representation of women in cardiovascular research.
Zainab Samad, MBBS, MHS
Pakistan
Dr. Zainab Samad is chairwoman of the Department of Medicine at Aga Khan University (AKU) in Pakistan and currently serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine at Duke University.
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She attended Medical School at the Aga Khan University Medical College in Karachi, Pakistan and thereafter completed her residency training in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Cardiology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. Additionally, she completed advanced training in cardiovascular imaging, specifically in clinical echocardiography, cardiac MRI and SPECT-myocardial perfusion imaging. She is also trained in quantitative methods with a Master of Health Sciences in Clinical Research degree from the National Institutes of Health- Duke Clinical Research Training Program. She served on faculty in the Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine for nine years before accepting the position at AKU in 2018. She resides full-time in Karachi.
Malissa J. Wood, MD
USA
Dr Wood is the Chief Medical Officer at Women As One and the Founder of the Corrigan Women’s Heart Health Program and the MGH Multidisciplinary SCAD Program.
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Dr. Wood completed her undergraduate and medical degrees in the combined B.A/M.D program from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, followed by training in internal medicine and cardiovascular medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, where she served as Chief Medical Resident. She joined the staff of Massachusetts General Hospital in 2000, where she founded and co-directed the Corrigan Women’s Heart Health Program and the MGH Multidisciplinary SCAD Program.
A dedicated advocate for diversity and equity, Dr. Wood served as the Associate Chief of Cardiology for Diversity and Health Equity and is currently serving on the Steering Committee of the iSCAD Registry. A past Chair of the ACC Board of Governors and former Trustee and Secretary of the ACC, she most recently served as the Vice President and Chief Physician Executive of the Lee Health Heart Institute in Fort Myers, Florida, and Professor of Medicine at the Florida State University College of Medicine. She is the 2025 recipient of the ACC Bernadine Healy Leadership in Cardiovascular Disease in Women Award.
The Faculty
Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, DMSc
Denmark
Lotte Bjerre Knudsen is the Chief Scientific Advisor for the SCO of Novo Nordisk.
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She heads up the team IDEA (Innovation & Data Experimentation Advancement) that focuses entirely on human data driven insights to inform drug discovery. Lotte is a long-time employee of Novo Nordisk, since 1989. Lotte is a co-inventor of liraglutide and has led all biology research programs for liraglutide and semaglutide from diabetes to obesity, cardiovascular, liver, kidney and Alzheimer’s Disease. She has been part of representing Novo Nordisk in five FDA Advisory committees.
Lotte holds a degree in biotechnology from the Technical University of Denmark, and a Doctoral Degree in Scientific Medicine from the University of Copenhagen, and she is an Adjunct Professor of Translational Medicine for Aarhus University. Lotte has an H-index of 64, is an inventor on numerous patents, and most prominently a recipient of the Paul Langerhans Award, the Science Mani Bhaumik Breakthrough of the Year Award, the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Research Award and the Breakthrough Prize of Life Sciences.
Barbara Casadei, MD, DPhil
United Kingdom
Dr. Barbara Casadei is currently British Heart Foundation (BHF) Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine, Honorary Consultant Cardiologist, and Head of the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London.
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Barbara Casadei graduated in Medicine at the University of Pavia, Italy. She moved to the University of Oxford in 1989 where she was awarded a DPhil in 1995 and a Professorship in Cardiovascular Medicine in 2006.
Barbara is Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, holds the highest honour of the British Cardiovascular Society (The Mackenzie Medal) and of the European Society of Cardiology (Gold Medal), and is Past President of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC, 2018-20). She is the co-founder of EuroHeart, an initiative supporting the assessment and improvement of quality of cardiovascular care in Europe and a member/chair of several Advisory Boards including the Fondation Leducq, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, and the Max Delbrück Centre for Molecular Medicine. Since 1 February 2026, Barbara has served as the EiC of JAMA Cardiology.
Filippo Crea, MD
Italy
Prof. Crea is Professor of Cardiology, Director of the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, Director of the Postgraduate School in Cardiology and Coordinator of the PhD program in Cellular and Molecular Cardiology at the Catholic University in Rome.
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Research activity has been mainly focused on the study of the multiple mechanisms of myocardial ischemia in chronic and acute coronary syndromes. Prof. Crea has been awarded numerous research awards including the Arrigo Recordati International Prize for the “Lifetime achievement in researching the pivotal role of microcirculation in systemic and organ diseases”. He has given prestigious lectureship worldwide including the 7th annual Robert L. Krakoff International Lecture in Cardiovascular Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard University Medical School. Since September 2020 he is Editor-in-Chief of the European Heart Journal.
Flávia Geraldes
United Kingdom
Flávia Geraldes is a Senior Editor at The Lancet and serves as one of the journal’s Cardiology Ambassadors.
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She is also a member of The Lancet’s Fast Track team, handling high impact submissions requiring rapid editorial turnaround. In addition to her primary interests in cardiology, she handles manuscripts across a range of clinical disciplines, mainly oncology, gene therapy, nephrology, and hepatology, with a particular focus on randomised clinical trials.
Before joining The Lancet in 2020, Flávia worked as a Journal Development Specialist for the open access journal Frontiers in Oncology. Prior to that, she was a Scientific Officer at the Institute of Cancer Research (London, UK), contributing to DNA sequencing studies supporting phase 1 and 2 clinical trials of targeted therapies for ovarian, lung, and prostate cancers. She holds a degree in Biomedical Science in Histocellular Pathology from the Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon, Portugal.
Bonnie Ky, MD, MSCE
USA
Dr. Bonnie Ky is the Founder’s Professor of Cardio-Oncology and tenured physician scientist at the University of Pennsylvania.
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She leads a highly active NIH-, AHA-, and PCORI-funded clinical translational research program in cardio-oncology with the fundamental goals of advancing actionable science to improve the cardiovascular care of our cancer patients. She is the Principal Investigator of multiple cohort studies focused on determining individual patient risk, through detailed phenotyping of the social determinants of health, clinical, biologic markers, and imaging-derived measures of cardiac function, and clinical trials focused on mitigating cardiovascular disease risk.
She is the Director of the Thalheimer Center for Cardio-Oncology, the Founding Director of the Penn Translational Cardio-Oncology Center of Excellence, and Director of the Penn Center for Quantitative Echocardiography. She is the immediate past Chair of the NIH Clinical Integrative Cardiovascular and Hematological Sciences Study Section. She is the inaugural Chair of the NCI ECOG-ACRIN Cardiotoxicity subcommittee and the co-Chair of the St Jude Children’s Research Hospital Cardiopulmonary Renal Working Group.
She is the founding Editor-in-Chief of JACC: CardioOncology, inducted member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and Association of University Cardiologists; elected former member of the Sarnoff Research Committee; elected member of the American College of Cardiology Board of Trustees; and recipient of the ECOG-ACRIN Young Investigator Award, the International Cardio-Oncology Society Thomas Force Leadership Award, and the 2025 American College of Cardiology Distinguished Scientist Award in the Translational Domain.
Jane Leopold, MD
USA
Dr. Jane Leopold is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Women’s Interventional Cardiology Health Initiative and Director of the Cardiovascular Research Cores at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
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Her clinical research involves using precision medicine approaches to characterize the pathobiological mechanisms underlying complex cardiopulmonary vascular diseases and she is a principal investigator of the NHLBI Pulmonary Vascular Disease Phenomics Study. She is also an internationally recognized vascular biologist with expertise in pulmonary vascular disease endophenotyping to understand the role of vascular structural and functional changes in the pathobiology of pulmonary hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases.
Her work has been funded by the NIH/NHLBI, the American Heart Association, the Lerner Foundation and she was named a Thomas W. Smith MD Scholar. She has coauthored numerous scientific manuscripts, editorials and book chapters and has been issued patents based on her work. She is the recipient of several research awards and was inducted as a member of the Association of University Cardiologists.
She serves on several national and international research committees and on national and international peer review committees. She has a longstanding interest in academic publishing and is a member of several editorial boards; was a former associate editor at Circulation and Circulation:Cardiovascular Interventions; and is currently the Deputy Editor for cardiology at the New England Journal of Medicine. In addition, she actively mentors and promotes the work of students, fellows, and early career faculty, many of whom have gone on to national and international leadership positions.
Gregory Lim, MA (Oxon.), DPhil
United Kingdom
Gregory Lim MA (Oxon.), DPhil is the Chief Editor of Nature Reviews Cardiology.
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Gregory took a first-class undergraduate degree in Physiological Sciences from Exeter College at the University of Oxford, UK. He then moved to Merton College, Oxford, to read for a DPhil in Cardiovascular Medicine, funded by the British Heart Foundation. Dr Lim joined Nature Reviews Cardiology in 2011 and has been the Chief Editor since 2015. Nature Reviews Cardiology is the leading journal in the field of cardiology and cardiovascular systems (2024 Impact Factor: 44.2) and publishes reviews, news and opinion articles across the spectrum of basic and translational cardiovascular research and clinical cardiology.
Bradley Maron, MD
USA
Dr. Bradley Maron is the Senior Associate Dean for Precision Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the Melvin Sharoky Professor of Medicine, and an Executive Co-Executive Director of the University of Maryland-Institute for Health Computing (UM-IHC) in North Bethesda, Maryland.
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Recently, Dr. Maron was named the next Editor-in-Chief of Circulation. His research interfaces redox biochemistry, network medicine, and next-generation bioinformatics to discover novel mechanisms underpinning cardiovascular disease. He has led collaborative projects contributing to drug development programs and epidemiological reports establishing cardiovascular risk. Collaborative research programs that led changed the hemodynamic criteria used to diagnose pulmonary hypertension in clinical practice worldwide.
Dr. Maron has co-authored over 240 scientific manuscripts, holds co-inventorship of several innovations, and is funded by the National Institutes of Health among other Foundations. He is the President of the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute, a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and a recipient of numerous awards for teaching. His wife of 25 years, Jill Maron, M.D., M.P.H. is a physician-scientist and neonatologist. Their daughter Alexis is studying musical theater at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and son Jack is a varsity swim team member at Brown University.
Roxana Mehran, MD
USA
Roxana Mehran, MD, FACC, FACP, FCCP, FESC, FAHA, MSCAI is an internationally renowned interventional cardiologist, clinical research expert and trialist in the field of cardiovascular disease.
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She is amongst the most prolific researchers in the United States and is a globally-respected leader of an academic research center focused on designing and implementing randomized clinical trials, outcomes research projects, and high impact academic publications. She has served as principal investigator for numerous global studies, developed important practice guidelines for treating patients with cardiovascular disease. She has focused on personalized medicine and developed individual risk scores for bleeding and acute kidney injury, participates regularly in developing clinical guidelines, and has authored over 1,800 peer-reviewed articles.
Dr. Mehran currently serves as member and 2026-2027 President on the Board of Trustees of The American College of Cardiology (ACC). She is a founder and Chief Scientific Officer of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF). She ranked 36th in the “Best Female Scientists in the World” and has been included for the past eight consecutive years in Clarivate Analytics: “Most Cited Researchers – Top 1%” as well as “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds”.
Dr. Mehran is leading the Lancet Commission on Women’s Cardiovascular Diseases, which has brought together leading researchers from around the world to identify and bridge gaps in scientific discovery, clinical trials, and care for women with cardiovascular disease. She was recently named Director of the Women Heart and Vascular Center at Mount Sinai Heart, spearheading a new program that represents a collaboration across multiple disciplines and designed to meet the unique needs of women’s cardiovascular health. In 2019, she founded Women As One, a not for profit organization, dedicated to advancing opportunities for women in medicine, where she serves as Chair of the Board.
Dr. Mehran is a recipient of several awards including the 2016 American College of Cardiology Bernadine Healy Leadership in CV disease award, the 2018 Nanette Wenger Award from Women’s Heart for excellence in research and education, the 2019 Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and the 2019 European Society of Cardiology Silver Medal and Andreas Grüntzig Lecture plaque.
In 2022, she received The Terry Ann Krulwich Physician-Scientist Alumni Award at Mount Sinai; the Linda Joy Pollin Heart Health Leadership Award from Cedar Sinai Medical Center; Doctor Honoris Causa Degree at Università della Svizzera Italiana; Women in Cardiology Mentoring Award from American Heart Association; and the Pulse-Setter Champion Award from The Cardiovascular Research Foundation. On March of 2024 she was honored with the Jacobi Medal, top achievement award from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Manesh Patel, MD
USA
Dr. Manesh Patel is president-elect of the American Heart Association for 2025-26. He is Chief of the Division of Cardiology, Vice President of Heart and Vascular Services for Duke Health, the Richard Stack Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the Duke University School of Medicine, and senior investigator at the Duke Clinical Research Institute.
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Dr. Patel received his medical degree from Emory University School of Medicine. He completed his residency and fellowship in cardiology at Duke University.
Dr. Patel is an interventional cardiologist with expertise in the care of people with coronary and peripheral vascular disease. His research areas of focus include evaluating antithrombotic therapies for heart disease and peripheral vascular disease, the imaging and physiologic assessment atherosclerotic coronary artery disease, and work to improve and facilitate the conduct of clinical trials. Dr. Patel has led several clinical trials and has published over 500 peer-reviewed articles, reviews, editorials, and has been named in the top 1% of highly cited researchers by web of sciences. He is currently focused on developing systems to discover and deliver innovative personalized care to improve cardiovascular health.
Dr. Patel’s efforts were recognized with election to the Association of University Cardiologists (AUC), American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), and American Association of Physicians (AAP). In 2022, he received the School of Medicine Career Mentoring Award and was named the Ron Stoney Vascular Hero by Vascular Cures. In 2023, Dr. Patel was named the American Heart Association Physician of the year. Dr. Patel is a longtime volunteer and spokesperson for the American Heart Association and Past Chair of the Committee on Scientific Sessions Program. He also serves in leadership roles at the local and national levels, including the National Board of Directors.
Borjana Pervan
Switzerland
Borjana Pervan is the Chief Operating Officer of the World Heart Federation (WHF), leading strategic direction, external impact, and organizational alignment.
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She led initiatives such as the World Heart Vision 2030, focusing on strengthening health systems and promoting healthier hearts globally. Under her leadership, WHF’s public campaigns have reached over 2 billion people worldwide, significantly raising global awareness and mobilizing partnerships and resources for cardiovascular health. Member engagement, critical to this success, has grown by over 74% since the launch of the USE your HEART campaign in 2020.
With nearly two decades of international leadership experience in global health, climate action, sustainability, and development, Borjana previously held senior roles at the International Cocoa Initiative and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), advancing sustainability, child protection, and environmental governance. Originally from Bulgaria, her early career as an investigative journalist included exposing international human trafficking and money laundering networks.
At WHF, Borjana’s priority is uniting a diverse, global community of over 240 organizations around the shared vision of achieving heart health for everyone. Driven by courage, curiosity, and creativity, she collaborates with colleagues, members, and partners to build compelling narratives grounded in science, advocate for actionable policy changes, and inspire behaviour change globally. Borjana also contributes to global and national climate and environmental initiatives in voluntary capacities.
Jean-Francois Riffaud
France
Jean-François Riffaud is the Chief Executive Officer at the European Society of Cardiology and is a recognised expert in public interest, social economy, humanitarian aid, and international development.
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After initial experience at Radio France Internationale and two years at the French Embassy in
Lebanon, Jean-Francois Riffaud took part in the creation of the Etablissement Français du Sang
and the complete reorganisation of the blood transfusion sector in France in the early 2000. He
successively held the positions of Chief of Staff to the Chairman, then Director of Communications
and International Affairs.
At the French Red Cross, he was then appointed Director of Communications, Development, and
Innovation, and became involved in responses to major humanitarian crises and the adaptation
of the health and social sector.
After a year at UNESCO, Jean-Francois Riffaud joined Action Contre la Faim as Director of
Communications and Resource Development, before becoming Chief Executive Officer in 2019.
He steers the development of ACF, which has become the largest international humanitarian
network fighting malnutrition and food insecurity, present in 55 countries and supporting more
than 20 million people.
He joined the ESC as CEO in July 2023, is board member of IDAF and France generosites and holds a Master II in International Economic and Development Law (University of Paris V).
Liesl Zühlke, MBChB, DCH, FCPaeds Cert Card, MPH, MSc, PhD
South Africa
Professor Liesl Zühlke, MBChB DCH FCPaeds Cert Card MPH FESC FACC MSc PhD, is a paediatric cardiologist in the Dept. of Paediatric Cardiology at Red Cross Children’s Hospital and directs the Children’s Heart Disease Research Unit focused on family-centred research into Children’s Heart Diseases of relevance in Africa.
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Her research projects span congenital and Rheumatic Heart disease, Grown-up Congenital heart disease and cardiac disease in women of childbearing age. She was the recipient of the 2018 MRC/Dfid African research leader Award. She is the only female full Professor of Paediatric Cardiology in her country and is passionate about mentoring women in Cardiology practice and leadership. She has delivered several talks in this regard and is part of the Lancet commission for Cardiovascular disease in Women.
A speaker at all the premier international cardiology congresses, she recently delivered a lecture to the Academy of Medical Sciences in London on “Developing capacity for clinical research in low and middle-income countries”, another personal passion and was a designed rising star at the Gates Grand Challenges meeting held in Ethiopia in October 2019. She leads the PROTEA study” Partnerships for Congenital Heart Disease in Africa” focusing on describing the epidemiology and genetic origins of Congenital Heart Disease in several countries in Africa.
View the agenda
Explore the sessions led by this exceptional faculty of senior leaders and experts in clinical care, research, and business, offering fresh perspectives and practical strategies you can apply in your own career.
