ENRICH-AF

Ashkan Shoamanesh

Senior Scientist

Ashkan Shoamanesh is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Div. of Neurology) and a stroke neurologist at McMaster University, where he holds the Marta and Owen Boris Chair in Stroke Research and Care. He is the founding Director of the Hemorrhagic Stroke Research Program and a Senior Scientist at the Population Health Research Institute in Hamilton, Canada. Shoamanesh’s clinical trials program focuses on advancing treatment and establishing new standards of care to prevent stroke or reduce stroke-related death and disability. He is the principal investigator (PI) or Co-PI of multiple international multicentre randomized trials, including ENRICH-AF (NCT03950076; Lancet 2023), OCEANIC-STROKE (NCT05686070), SATURN-MRI (NCT03936361) and CoVasc-ICH (NCT05159219). He has also held central leadership roles in the ANNEXa-I (NEJM 2024), PACIFIC-STROKE (Lancet 2022) and NAVIGATE-ESUS (NEJM 2018) trials. Shoamanesh is the founding Chair of the Canadian Hemorrhagic Stroke Trials Initiative (CoHESIVE; www2.phri.ca/CoHESIVE) and was the lead author of the first Canadian Stroke Best Practice Recommendations on the Management of Spontaneous Intracerebral Hemorrhage.

Shoamanesh has published over 170 peer-reviewed manuscripts in top-tier scientific journals. He serves on the editorial boards of Stroke, the International Journal of Stroke, and the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences. He is an active contributor to international scientific meetings and previously co-chaired the World Stroke Congress (World Stroke Organization) and the World Intracranial Hemorrhage Conference.

His research program receives funding from several bodies, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, National Institutes of Health, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, Brain Canada, the Australian Government Medical Research Future Fund, British Heart Foundation, and multiple industry partners. His contributions have been recognized with numerous accolades from international organizations, such as the American Academy of Neurology (Pessin Award), American Heart/Stroke Association (Globus Award, Siekert Award, Dudley White Award), American Neurological Association (Denny-Brown Award), European Stroke Organization (Young Investigator Award, Scientific Excellence Award), Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (National New  Investigator Award, Barnett Scholarship) and the World Stroke Organization (Future Leaders Program).

Robert Hart

Emeritus Scientist

Robert Hart is Professor of Medicine (Neurology) at McMaster University and a vascular neurologist at Hamilton Health Sciences. After completing a fellowship in cerebrovascular disease at the Oregon Health Sciences University, he spent most of his career at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio before relocating to McMaster University in September 2011.

He has a long-standing interest in stroke, stroke research, and clinical trials. He has directed several randomized clinical trials serving as the principal investigator of the NIH/NINDS-sponsored Stroke Prevention in Atrial Fibrillation (SPAF) I, II and III trials (1987-2000) and co-principal investigator of the NIH/NINDS-sponsored Secondary Prevention of Small Subcortical Strokes (SPS3) randomized trials (2001-2013). Antithrombotic therapies to prevent stroke in atrial fibrillation and especially novel oral anticoagulants are areas of special interest. He has published more than 250 articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Stuart Connolly

Stuart Connolly is a Professor of Medicine at McMaster University and a cardiac electrophysiologist at Hamilton Health Sciences. He became a faculty member at McMaster University in 1983 and was awarded a full professorship in 1994. He was also appointed as the inaugural holder of the Salim Yusuf Chair in Cardiology at McMaster University.

He has published more than 270 scientific articles in the field, and is currently a member of the editorial boards for a number of prominent cardiology journals, including Heart, the American Heart Journal and the Journal of Pacing and Electrophysiology. His main research interests are focused on the evaluation of treatments for heart rhythm disorders. His academic career has been largely devoted to the design and execution of controlled clinical trials in this area.

He holds a Masters degree from Fordham University, New York, and an MD from McGill University in Montreal. He received his specialist training in cardiology at the University of Toronto and at Stanford University.

Aristeidis Katsanos

Investigator

Aristeidis Katsanos, MD, PhD is a Vascular Neurologist, Assistant Professor at the McMaster University and Investigator at the Population Health Research Institute, Hamilton, ON, Canada. His research focuses on emerging neurosonology applications and the evidence-based evaluation of novel therapies in acute stroke treatment and secondary stroke prevention.

He has published more than 250 papers in high-impact medical journals to date and currently serves as the Co-PI of two phase 2 randomized controlled clinical trials evaluating optimal blood pressure control after endovascular thrombectomy (DETECT; NCT04484350) and the use of colchicine for the prevention of vascular events after an acute intracerebral hemorrhage (CoVasc-ICH; NCT05159219).

He received the Young Investigator Award from the European Stroke Organisation, New Investigator Award from the Heart & Stroke Foundation Canada and the EJ Moran Campbell Award from the Department of Medicine, McMaster University. He serves as an Academic Editor for PLoS One, Associate Editor for Frontiers in Neurology, and Assistant Editor for Stroke. 

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.

Kevin Reeh

Project Manager

Kevin Reeh has more than 15 years experience in academic research. He has been at PHRI since 2014, and has been involved in the coordination of large, multicenter international clinical trials, as well as pilot/feasibility studies. These project include industry-sponsored, and investigator-initiated with industry and/or grant funding.

He has Bachelor degrees in the Biological Sciences and Health Sciences from Brock University, as well as a Masters of Science from Dalhousie University.