Early Career Mentorship Committee

The ISACB is happy to announce the formation of an Early Career Mentorship Committee!

The Early Career Mentorship Committee will:

  • Facilitate the formation of mentor-mentee and peer-to-peer mentoring relationships
  • Foster career development and collaborative opportunities across the ISACB community


Potential mentoring topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Career panels
  • Funding opportunities
  • Communication tips
  • Management strategies
  • Work-life balance.

If you are interested in joining the Early Career Mentorship committee, please contact any of the following current committee members.

Giovanni Ferrari, PhD (Co-Chair) (gf2375@cumc.columbia.edu): Dr. Giovanni Ferrari is Associate Professor of Surgical Sciences and Scientific Director of the Cardiothoracic Research Program at Columbia University. He has 13+ years of experience in the field of cell biology and cardiovascular medicine. After a postdoc at New York University he became faculty and group leader at University of Pennsylvania first as Assistant and later as Associate Professor. At UPenn he launched the Penn Cardiac Bioregistry for the division of cardiovascular surgery. In 2017 he relocated his program to Columbia University where he is directing the Columbia Biobank for Translational Science (CBTS), an applied human biobank and clinical database supporting translational and precision medicine initiatives. Dr. Ferrari maintain his role as principal investigator of the Penn Cardiac Bioregistry as Adjunct Associate Professor at UPenn. Heart valve and vascular cell physiology, cardiac biomechanics, and the brain-heart axis are Dr. Ferrari’s main research interests and the topic of the large majority of his publications and grants. His research is currently supported by multiple NIH R01s, AHA and other agencies. He serves on NIH and AHA study sections as well as of other international agencies and scientific journals.

Craig Goergen, PhD (Co-Chair) (cgoergen@purdue.edu): Dr. Goergen is the Principal Investigator of the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Laboratory at Purdue University. His work combines advanced engineering, imaging, and biological approaches to study a variety of cardiac and vascular diseases. With funding from the NIH, NSF, AHA, and the Gates Foundation, Dr. Goergen and his team are working to improve cardiovascular disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention, ultimately providing patients with longer and more fulfilling lives. Dr. Goergen received a BS degree in biomedical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and MS and PhD degrees in bioengineering from Stanford University. In graduate school, Dr. Goergen worked with the Biomedical Imaging Group at Genentech to study abdominal aortic aneurysm formation utilizing multiple mouse models. His postdoctoral training in molecular optical imaging at Harvard Medical School focused on cardiac disease and left ventricular remodeling. He joined the faculty at Purdue University in December of 2012 and was recently named the recipient of the 2017 BMES Rita Schaffer Young Investigator Award.

Marie Billaud, PhD (billaudm@upmc.edu): Dr. Marie Billaud is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and in the Thoracic Aortic Disease Research Lab of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Dr. Billaud received her PhD from the Université de Bordeaux in France where she focused on intercellular communication, reactive oxygen species and nitric oxide signaling in the pulmonary circulation. Dr. Billaud further completed her post-doctoral work at the University of Virginia, where she identified the role of a newly discovered protein (pannexin 1) in the regulation of vascular tone and systemic blood pressure. In close collaboration with cardiac surgeons, Dr. Billaud’s primary research goal at the University of Pittsburgh is to investigate the molecular and cellular mechanisms driving thoracic aortic aneurysm. She integrates her knowledge in reactive oxygen species signalization to identify the mechanisms behind oxidative stress in the aorta of patients with bicuspid aortic valve. In parallel, Dr. Billaud incorporates her skills in vascular physiology to investigate the highly remodeled aortic vasa vasorum network in patients with thoracic aortic aneurysm.

Alexey Kamenskiy, PhD (alexey.kamenskiy@unmc.edu): Dr. Kamenskiy is a Professor and mechanical engineer in the Department of Biomechanics and the Department of Surgery, University of Nebraska. His research is focused on experimental and computational vascular mechanobiology, vascular pathophysiology and ageing, devices and materials for open and endovascular repair, and non-compressible hemorrhage control. His laboratory Collaboration for Advanced Surgical and Engineering Applications has built a large database of human artery mechanical, structural, and demographic characteristics including data on more than 600 human subjects in all ages. Dr. Kamenskiy closely collaborates with vascular surgeons in using patient data, human cadaver, swine, bench-top, and computational models to unravel complex pathophysiology of human vasculature, and develop new devices and materials for improved clinical outcomes. His research is funded by the NIH, DoD, and private industry. Dr. Kamenskiy holds several patents on vascular devices and is a member of multiple NIH and DoD study sections.

 

 

 

Committee Members

Craig Goergen, PhD (Co-Chair)
Purdue University

Giovanni Ferrari, PhD (Co-Chair)
Columbia University

Marie Billaud, PhD
Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School

Alexey Kamenskiy, PhD
University of Nebraska

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