Aristeidis Katsanos
Investigator
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.
Emma van Reekum
Investigator
Emma van Reekum
Investigator
Emma van Reekum is a psychiatry resident doctor in the clinician investigator program at McMaster University. She is undertaking a graduate degree in clinical epidemiology under the supervision of Salim Yusuf. Her graduate work primarily focuses on the BRAVE-Mind trial sub-study.
Her academic interests are in the bidirectional relationship between cardiometabolic health and neuropsychiatric disorders.
Julie My Van Nguyen
Investigator
Julie My Van Nguyen
Investigator
Julie My Van Nguyen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She is an attending physician in the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at the Juravinski Hospital and Cancer Centre. Upon completing a Masters of Science in Healthcare Improvement and Patient Safety, she has led several multidisciplinary perioperative quality improvement projects, including initiatives to decrease surgical site infections and thromboembolic events after Gynecologic Oncology surgery as well as an opioid stewardship strategy. The main focus of her clinical research is to define the impact of frailty on postoperative and oncologic outcomes in Gynecologic Oncology, to in turn establish strategies to optimize modifiable risk factors.
Along with Dr Maura Marcucci, Dr Nguyen is the co-PI of the multicenter prospective study FARGO “Frailty Assessment for Risk Prediction in Gynecologic Oncology Patients Undergoing Surgery and Chemotherapy”. She is the recipient of the PHRI Transforming Tomorrow Today grant, the HHS Early Career Research Award, the JHCCF Thematic Research Grant, and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology “Most Promising Researcher” award.
Lily Park is a general surgery resident and MSc candidate in the clinician-investigator program under the supervision of PJ Devereaux. Her research interests are in the areas of knowledge translation and perioperative care, specifically in reducing perioperative bleeding and transfusion rates.
She is investigating innovative methods to facilitate the uptake of perioperative care evidence in clinical practice. She is also leading the general surgery sub-studies for the POISE-3 trial and VISION mortality study.
Luciana Catanese
Investigator
Luciana Catanese
Investigator
Luciana is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Neurology) at McMaster University and a Stroke neurologist at Hamilton General Hospital. She is the physician lead for hyperacute stroke services at Hamilton Health Sciences and the Central-South Stroke Network in Ontario. She is the Physician Lead of the Stroke Unit at Hamilton General Hospital and the director of the McMaster Stroke fellowship program.
She completed her training in Neurology at Boston University, followed by a fellowship in Vascular Neurology at Harvard Medical School and training in Biostatistics at Harvard University. Luciana has participated in multiple international trials testing novel therapies in acute ischemic stroke patients and has multiple publications in high impact journals, including articles in Lancet, Circulation research, JAMA Neurology. She holds several grants, is involved in the Canadian Stroke Best Practice Recommendations, and serves as an Associate Editor of the Stroke journal and a full reviewer for CIHR.
Her research interests include hyperacute stroke therapies, acute stroke neuroimaging, stroke in women, cerebrovascular complications of COVID-19 and acute management of intracranial hemorrhage.
Madhu Natarajan
Investigator
Madhu Natarajan
Investigator
Madhu Natarajan is an interventional cardiologist and Principal Investigator for the Coronary Interventional Health Delivery and Knowledge Translational and Implementation programs at PHRI. He is a Professor at McMaster University, Director of Catheterization Laboratories at Hamilton Health Sciences, and Site Director for Cardiology at Hamilton General Hospital.
He has published more than 85 articles, is Chair of the STEMI-EMS Committee, Cardiac Care Network of Ontario, member of the Royal College Cardiology National Examination Board, and program lead for Regional STEMI network in LHIN-4 Ontario.
Mahshid Dehghan
Investigator
Mahshid Dehghan
Investigator
Mahshid Dehghan is an Investigator for the Nutrition Epidemiology program at PHRI, and the nutrition lead of the Population Urban and Rural Epidemiological (PURE) study and the INTERSTROKE study. Her main interests are the development of methods to measure dietary intake of individuals around the world, and understanding the impact of dietary factors in the cause and prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer. She has published 39 papers and 2 book chapters.
She holds two Masters of Clinical Nutrition and Health Research Methodology, received her doctoral degree in Clinical Nutrition from Newcastle University, England, and completed post-doctoral training in Nutrition Epidemiology at McMaster University.
Maram Khaled
Investigator
Maram Khaled
Investigator
Maram Khaled is an investigator at PHRI, supervised by Maura Marcucci, and a PhD student in the Health Research Methodology Program at McMaster University. Her current research interests focus on perioperative pain, pain management strategies and neurocognitive outcomes after non-cardiac surgery in older adults.
A pain physician, she obtained her medical degree (MBBCh) from Alexandria University, Egypt and her MSc degree in Pharmacology from the University of Toronto where she studied the neurocircuitry of relapse to addiction. She completed her training in Pain Medicine at the Medical Research Institute, Alexandria University, Egypt (2012-2018) where she was involved in clinical research related to acute and chronic pain.
Michael Wang
Investigator
Michael Wang
Investigator
Michael Ke Wang is an Investigator at PHRI and an MSc student in the Health Research Methodology Program at McMaster University, supervised by David Conen. His main interests are in perioperative medicine and perioperative atrial fibrillation. Michael is actively involved in the conduct of large international perioperative clinical trials coordinated from PHRI; he is the project officer of the COP-AF and ASPIRE-AF trials.
Michael is a Clinical Scholar 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, and perioperative vascular training at McMaster University.
Michael Chong
Investigator; Asst Director CRLB-GMEL
Michael Chong
Investigator; Asst Director CRLB-GMEL
Michael Chong is a PHRI Investigator and Assistant Director of the Clinical Research Laboratory and Biobank – Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology Laboratory (CRLB-GMEL). He is also an Assistant Professor of Pathology and Molecular Medicine at McMaster University. To date, he has published > 60 articles related to stroke and cardiovascular disease genetics, mitochondrial genomics, biomarkers, and bioinformatics. He completed his MSc in Medical Sciences at McMaster University (2012-2014) under the supervision of Guillaume Paré, where he studied the role of rare genetic variants as risk factors for early-onset stroke.
From 2015-2017, he worked as a bioinformatician at GMEL and played key roles in the genetic analyses of several PHRI studies including INTERSTROKE and ORIGIN. From 2018-2021, he completed his PhD in Biochemistry at McMaster university, where he integrated genetics and biomarker data to uncover novel drug targets for stroke.
Natalia McInnes
Investigator
Natalia McInnes
Investigator
Natalia McInnes is the Joint Principal Investigator for the Diabetes Remission program at PHRI, and Assistant Professor in the Division of Endocrinology, McMaster University. She has received peer-reviewed research funding from CIHR and Canadian Diabetes Association and is supported by the Medicine Internal Career Award from McMaster University. Her research interests include remission of pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes, and the relationship between dysglycemia and ectopic fat deposition.
She received her medical degree from the University of British Columbia. After completing her Internal Medicine and Endocrinology training, she pursued MSc in Health Research Methodology at McMaster University.
Pavel Roshanov
Investigator
Pavel Roshanov
Investigator
Pavel Roshanov, an internal medicine physician and nephrologist, is completing a fellowship in kidney transplantation at McMaster University. He has published more than 50 papers in the areas of perioperative care and medical informatics.
Rachel Eikelboom
Investigator
Rachel Eikelboom
Investigator
Rachel Eikelboom is a cardiac surgery resident and PhD candidate in the Health Research Methodology program under the supervision of PHRI Senior Scientist Richard Whitlock and PHRI Scientist Emilie Belley-Cote.
Her research interests are in antithrombotic therapy after bioprosthetic valve replacement. Rachel is a co-investigator of the SUNDANCE trial, a sub-study of the DANCE trial, which focuses on subclinical valve thrombosis in patients with bioprosthetic aortic valve replacement.
Raed Joundi is a stroke neurologist at Hamilton Health Sciences, Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine (Division of Neurology) at McMaster University, and Investigator in the Brain Health research program at PHRI. His main academic interest is in evaluating and finding novel strategies to improve functional outcomes, quality of life, and cognition in people with cerebrovascular disease.
He obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Manitoba, MD from Queen’s University, DPhil from Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship, and neurology residency training at the University of Toronto. He then completed a stroke fellowship and MSc in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Calgary supported by a CIHR Fellowship Grant.
Sandra Ofori
Investigator
Sandra Ofori
Investigator
Sandra Ofori is an Investigator in the Perioperative and Surgery research group at PHRI, an Assistant Professor in McMaster University’s Department of Medicine (cardiology), and a general cardiologist in Hamilton Health Sciences and St Joseph’s hospital, Hamilton. Her research interests are in the areas of perioperative care and cardiovascular disease prevention.
Her current research program is focused on optimizing the health of patients undergoing surgery with a focus on perioperative smoking cessation and secondary prevention strategies. Ofori is actively involved in the conduct of large international perioperative clinical trials coordinated from PHRI and was the project officer of the Post Discharge after Surgery Virtual Care with Remote Automated Monitoring Technology (PVC-RAM) 1 and 3 trials and a Co-Investigator in the PVC-RAM-2 trial. She is leading the smoking cessation program in the perioperative care group and is the Co-PI of the PREVENT trial.
Ofori completed her residency training in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. She holds a Master’s degree in Preventive Cardiology from the Imperial College, London UK, and completed a Perioperative Medicine fellowship and a PhD in Health Research Methodology (Clinical Epidemiology) from McMaster University both under the supervision of PHRI Senior Scientist PJ Devereaux. She was in the third cohort of the World Heart Federation Salim Yusuf Emerging Leaders Program that was focused on the reduction of the global burden of hypertension
Thomas Scheier
Investigator
Thomas Scheier
Investigator
Thomas Scheier, an infectious diseases physician, is a MSc student in the Health Research Methodology Program at McMaster University (supervised by Associate PHRI Scientist Dominik Mertz).
His research interests include antimicrobial resistance, infection control, and hospital epidemiology. Supervised by PHRI Senior Scientist John Eikelboom, he is project officer of the REVIVE trial.
Vinai Bhagirath
Investigator
Vinai Bhagirath
Investigator
Vinai Bhagirath is a hematologist working clinically in benign hematology and thrombosis at the Hamilton General Hospital. He holds a Master’s degree in Medical Sciences, for which he studied molecular mediators of inflammation in sepsis, after which he trained as a clinical research fellow under the mentorship of John Eikelboom, a Senior Scientist at PHRI.
His current research interests include optimal measurement and dosing of direct oral anticoagulants, innovative digital platforms to improve trial efficiency, and predictors of bleeding.
Gita Wahi
Associate Investigator
Gita Wahi
Associate Investigator
Gita Wahi’s research is dedicated to enhancing the health and well-being of children and families, particularly those at risk for or experiencing childhood obesity. Her work emphasizes health promotion and the development of effective treatment strategies in collaboration with families. Key areas of her research include investigating the prevalence, causes, and treatment of childhood obesity, addressing health disparities by focusing on underrepresented populations, and engaging in community-based research to ensure culturally relevant interventions. Wahi’s research is deeply integrated with her clinical practice, allowing her findings to be directly applied to improve patient care. She also collaborates with various organizations to amplify the impact of her work.
