SPECIALTY AND TITLE

Cardiologist

Assistant Professor

HOSPITAL AFFILIATIONS

St Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton
Hamilton Health Sciences

UNIVERSITY AFFILIATIONS

McMaster

AREA OF RESEARCH

Techniques for improving cardioversion success

Atrial Fibrillation and Cardiac Surgery

Atrial Fibrillation Screening

Clinical Trial Methodology

MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE AND/OR HEALTH CARE DELIVER

I am an Early Career Researcher, having begun my first academic appointment September 1, 2021. I am a cardiologist with subspeciality training in clinical electrophysiology and I completed a PhD in Health Research Methods. I have a strong interest in improving detection and outcomes for patients with atrial fibrillation and innovative methods in clinical trials. I work clinically in general cardiology, electrophysiology and care directly for patients who have had cardiac surgery. I founded Canada’s first post-operative atrial fibrillation follow-up clinic.

Research Leadership:
Building on my PhD thesis, I am leading the Atrial Fibrillation After Cardiac Surgery research program. This program seeks to improve the management of new-onset atrial fibrillation across the patient journey: from prevention, to acute rhythm management, to short-term anti-thrombotic therapies and long-term risk stratification. I lead a team that includes certified research coordinators, statisticians, undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students.
I have obtained over $8,000,000 in peer-reviewed funding. My successful grants as principal investigator include a Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) AF Award, a CCS-Bayer Award, Heart and Stroke Grants in Aid, a Canadian Stroke Prevention Intervention Network Junior Investigator Award, a Hamilton Health Sciences New Investigator Fund Award, two Hamilton Academic Health Sciences Organization Awards and a CIHR Project Grant.
My PhD research program included two moderate sized prospective studies of 250 (PMID: 33458680) and 276 (PMID: 30125047). I oversaw the full enrolment of both studies. The cornerstone study of my PhD will be published in Annals of Internal Medicine on October 10 2023. Late in October 2023, I will receive the Canadian Cardiovascular Society’s Young Investigator Award

Publications:
I have published over 135 journal articles, approximately half as first or last author, with fist-author articles in top journals including the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the European Heart Journal (EHJ) and Annals of Internal Medicine. My h-index is 25 as of August 2023. I have published several articles in the field of AF and Cardiac surgery and I am currently leading multiple systematic reviews in AF after cardiac surgery.