CIRC: Group Members

Email: CGHARIOS@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Beirut, Lebanon
Graduate Education: American University of Beirut, MD
Current Projects & Research: Charbel uses lifestyle, genetic, and molecular imaging data from the Mass General Brigham Biobank to study the associations between sociodemographic and environmental stressors, and cardiovascular outcomes (particularly heart failure).

Charbel also leverages multimodality imaging in the STRIVE (Stress and Trauma: Impact on Cardiovascular Disease) cohort to characterize novel structures and mechanisms involved in the brain-heart connection.

Email: TQUINAGLIA@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Campinas, SP Brazil
Graduate Education: University of Ribeirão Preto, MD and University of Campinas, PhD in Pharmacology
Current Projects & Research: Thiago is a post-doctoral research fellow. He is certified in Cardiology and Echocardiography and is experienced in Cardiovascular Imaging. His research interests include resistant hypertension, cardio-oncology, endothelial dysfunction, atherosclerosis, arterial stiffness, left ventricular remodeling, and diastolic dysfunction. Thiago is currently working on the STOP-CA and REPRIEVE-MR studies.

Email: jheemelaar@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Education: Vrije Universiteit / VU Medical Center, MD, and Ph.D. Candidate in Cardiovascular Medicine at Leiden University Medical Center
Current Projects & Research: Julius is a research fellow at CIRC / Mass General Hospital and a Ph.D. Candidate at Leiden University Medical Center. He uses modern natural language processing techniques to answer clinically relevant cardio-oncology research questions from unstructured electronic healthcare data. Furthermore, Julius works on the REPRIEVE-MR study. His research interest includes cardio-oncology, heart failure, artificial intelligence, and digital innovation in clinical research and clinical practice.

Email: waldosoky@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Mansoura, Egypt
Graduate Education: University of Mansoura, MD
Current Projects & Research: Wesam leverages advanced multimodal cardiovascular imaging techniques (e.g., PET, CT, CMR) to investigate the interplay between inflammatory biomarkers, lifestyle factors, and stress-related activity on cardiovascular and thromboembolism risk, disparate cohorts. In addition, she is studying the relationship between inflammatory imaging phenotypes and calcification using an inflammatory cell-specific tracer (Ga 68 DOTA-TATE). She is also involved in the ARTISAN study that investigates the cardiac effects of Treprostinil on patients with pulmonary hypertension using Cardiac Magnetic Resonance.

Email: mlangenbach@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Cologne, Germany
Education: Institute for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Frankfurt, University of Frankfurt, Germany, MD, and Institute for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Germany, MD.
Current Projects & Research: Marcel is a research fellow at CIRC / Mass General Hospital and a board-certified radiologist at the University Hospital Cologne. He graduated and earned his doctorate from the University of Frankfurt, Germany, and completed his residency at the University Hospitals in Frankfurt and Cologne, Germany. His research interest includes cardiac computed tomography with a focus on coronary artery disease and clinical implementation. Marcel currently works on the PROMISE trial investigating the role of air pollution and socio-economic factors on coronary artery disease. Further, he received a grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG) to investigate the relationship between peri-coronary adipose tissue and coronary artery disease.

Email: ibreidert@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Cologne, Germany
Education: Institute for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Germany, MD.
Current Projects & Research: Isabel is a research fellow at CIRC / Mass General Hospital and is in her 2nd year of radiology residency at the University Hospital Cologne. She graduated and earned her doctoral degree from the University of Cologne, Germany. Her research interest includes cardiac computed tomography with a focus on women and inflammation, coronary artery disease, clinical implementation, and heart valve imaging. Isabel currently works on the INFORM trial investigating the role of inflammation in women with HIV for coronary artery disease. Further, she is involved in the PROMISE trial.

Email: gcivieri@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Vicenza, Italy
Education: University of Padua, MD
Current Projects & Research: Giovanni is a research fellow at Mass General Hospital and a general cardiology fellow at the University of Padua. Clinically, he is interested in heart failure, cardiac involvement of systemic diseases, and coronary microcirculation. His research interests include microvascular dysfunction after acute coronary syndromes and cardiac allograft vasculopathy. Giovanni uses data from the Mass General Brigham Biobank to investigate the relationship between psychiatric diseases and cardiovascular risk.

Email: sdoroodgar-jorshery@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Toronto, Canada
Education: Shahid Beheshti (National) University of Medical Sciences, MD-MPH
Current Projects & Research: Saman is a postdoctoral fellow in the Machine Learning group of the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard University. Prior to joining the team at MGH CIRC, Saman was a vascular surgery resident at Yale, after which he pursued Machine Learning training at the University of Toronto/Vector Institute under supervision of Canada Research Chair, Dr. Ghassemi. Saman’s collaborative research in the Machine Learning for Health (ML4H) group between UofT/Vector Institute, MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Sciences, and the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard has resulted in multiple conference presentations and publications. His current research at the MGH CIRC is funded by an Impetus Grant for Aging Research entitled "Understanding ImAging: Discovering imaging biomarkers and genetic modifiers of organ-specific accelerated aging through deep learning of whole-body MRI data”. The aim of the project is to improve early detection, to increase scientific knowledge, and identify potential treatments for age-related chronic disease by identifying individuals with accelerated aging from imaging data who are at high-risk for development of future disease.