ASPIRE-AF

David Conen

Senior Scientist

David Conen is currently the Principal Investigator and Senior Scientist at the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) and an Associate Professor of Medicine at McMaster University. He serves as a staff cardiologist at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (SJHH) and Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) and is the Cardiology Clinical Site Lead at the Juravinski Hospital. Conen obtained his MD degree at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and holds a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, USA. He completed a 2-year postdoctoral research fellowship in clinical epidemiology. His research focuses on perioperative medicine and atrial fibrillation.

Conen is the Principal Investigator of two large multinational clinical trials aimed at preventing and treating perioperative atrial fibrillation (COP-AF and ASPIRE-AF) and is involved in the leadership of many international cardiovascular and perioperative trials. COP-AF has recently been presented and published. His research activities also include conducting large epidemiological cohort studies that examine risk factors for the occurrence and consequences of atrial fibrillation. He has published over 250 manuscripts in peer-reviewed scientific journals and has received several prestigious grants and awards in both Switzerland and Canada. Conen has extensive knowledge in the design, development, management, analysis, interpretation, and reporting of clinical trials and large-scale epidemiology studies.

Michael Wang

Investigator

Michael K. Wang is an Investigator at PHRI and a PhD student in the Health Research Methodology Program at McMaster University, supervised by David Conen. His main interests are in perioperative cardiovascular medicine. Michael is actively involved in the conduct of large international perioperative clinical trials coordinated from PHRI. He is the principal investigator of the DETECT-POAF cohort study and is the project officer of the ASPIRE-AF trial. He was previously the project officer of the COP-AF trial.

Michael is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact and the Department of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at McMaster University. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Ottawa and completed his internal medicine residency, general internal medicine fellowship, perioperative vascular fellowship, and clinician investigator program training at McMaster University.

Tara McCready

Program Director

Tara McCready, PhD, oversees a variety of collaborative programs at PHRI, and serves as Project Manager for PHRI research studies and registries.

She was recruited to PHRI as a Program Director for the Canadian Network and Centre for Trials Internationally (CANNeCTIN), a national network funded by the CIHR/CFI Clinical Research Initiative program to improve the prevention and treatment of cardiac and vascular diseases and diabetes.

Previously the Executive Director of the Canadian Maternal, Infant, Child and Youth Research Network, Tara holds a PhD in Biochemistry and a MBA in Technology Commercialization from the University of Alberta.

Amanda Taylor

Associate Program Manager

Amanda Taylor is an Associate Program Manager who currently coordinates trials in stroke, and has experience conducting trials in acute coronary syndrome and arrhythmia. Amanda joined PHRI in 2007. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree (Honours) in Neurobiology from Brock University.