Group Members

Co-Director

Michael Lu, MD, MPH

Michael T. Lu, MD, MPH, is Director of AI and Co-Director of the MGH Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center (CIRC), Director of the MGH Imaging Trials Center (MITC), Associate Chair of Imaging Science for the MGH Department of Radiology, and Associate Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Lu’s clinical expertise is in cardiovascular imaging, including the acquisition and interpretation of CT, MRI, and ultrasound of the heart and blood vessels.

His research focus is on A) clinical trials of cardiac CT to improve health and B) machine learning to predict health outcomes from multimodal imaging. He is Co-PI of the Data Coordinating Center (DCC) of the REPRIEVE trial, a NHLBI/NIH-sponsored multicenter randomized controlled trial of statins to reduce coronary plaque and prevent cardiovascular events in persons with HIV. Recent work has explored convolutional neural networks to predict long-term mortality, incident lung cancer, and longevity from chest radiograph (x-ray) images and to automate coronary artery calcium scoring on chest CT.

Dr. Lu earned his undergraduate, MD, and MPH degrees from Harvard University. His training included a transitional internship in Surgery and Medicine at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, residency in Diagnostic Radiology at the University of California, San Francisco, fellowship in Thoracic and Cardiac Imaging at MGH, and a NIH T32 fellowship in Cardiac Imaging at MGH.

Co-Director

Tomas Neilan, MD, MPH

Dr. Neilan received his M.D. from University College Dublin and MPH from Harvard School of Public Health. He completed internal medicine residency and cardiology training at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital in Dublin and again at Massachusetts General Hospital. He has also completed extensive training in echocardiography at Massachusetts General Hospital and cardiac magnetic resonance at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Neilan is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, the Director of the Cardio-Oncology Program and the Co-Director of the Cardiac MR PET CT Program.

Dr. Neilan has had a long-standing clinical and research interest in the cardiovascular care of patients with cancer. Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death and disability among cancer survivors and cardiovascular care for patients with cancer requires a tailored approach that is unique for each patient. He is specifically interested in how we can improve on the methods for detection of the cardiac toxicity after chemotherapy and radiotherapy and to use that information to determine how we care for patients.

Co-Director

Ahmed Tawakol, MD

Dr Tawakol graduated from Stanford Medical School and did his Medical Residency and Cardiovascular Diseases Fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He subsequently completed training in Nuclear Cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, after which he joined the Cardiology Division staff. His clinical focus is in nuclear cardiology and general cardiology, with a special focus on the identification of patients at highest risk for atherothrombotic event.

Dr Tawakol’s research interest is in imaging of atherosclerosis. His work has focused on developing novel diagnostic approaches and novel treatment strategies for atherosclerosis. To that end, Dr Tawakol has developed and validated molecular methods to characterize atherosclerotic plaques, and has made seminal observations validating the use of FDG-PET imaging for the measurement of atherosclerotic plaque inflammation. Currently, he is leading several multi-center trials to evaluate interventions targeting plaque inflammation and is evaluating the potential clinical role of vascular PET imaging for improving the identification of patients at highest risk for atherothrombotic events.

Associate Director of Operations

Borek Foldyna, MD

Borek Foldyna, MD, is a Cardiovascular Radiologist, Member of Faculty at Harvard Medical School, and Administrative Director of the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Foldyna graduated and earned his doctorate from the University of Leipzig, Germany. Within Radiology’s broad field, Dr. Foldyna has received extensive training in cardiovascular imaging and completed the Harvard Catalyst Education Program in applied biostatistics. Besides clinical utilization of cardiac imaging, Dr. Foldyna has co-investigated and lead several research efforts in investigator- and NIH-funded projects, including large trials, such as the Framingham Heart Study, PROMISE, and REPRIEVE trial. In collaboration with AIM, Dr. Foldyna has developed, validated, and applied deep-learning algorithms to assess the quality and quantity of coronary artery calcium, heart size, and epicardial adipose tissue on cardiac CT.

These efforts have resulted in several peer-reviewed publications and book chapter contributions. Additionally, Dr. Foldyna received the Siemens Outstanding Academic Research Award for his work on coronary artery calcium and the Top 3 Poster Award from the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research for investigating the natural history of coronary plaques in people living with HIV.

Brian Ghoshhajra, MD, MBA

Dr. Ghoshhajra is a board-certified Diagnostic Radiologist, with advanced training in Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (CT) and Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). 

Dr. Ghoshhajra specializes in the use of advanced cross-sectional imaging techniques (including Ultrasonography, CT, and MRI) to non-invasively diagnose diseases of the blood vessels and heart. His clinical interests include advanced non-invasive imaging for coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular and venous disease, and congenital heart disease. 

His training includes a Transitional Residency at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pittsburgh, PA, Diagnostic Radiology Residency at the Western Pennsylvania Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA, and a National Institutes of Health – sponsored Clinical and Research Fellowship in Cardiovascular Imaging at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA.  He also holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH.  He is board certified by the American Board of Radiology and the Certification Board of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography, and has published more than 200 scientific and peer-reviewed articles and numerous book chapters on cardiovascular imaging.  He is a currently serves as the President of the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography.

Dr. Ghoshhajra is the Division Chief of Cardiovascular Imaging in the Department of Radiology, and an Associate Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School.

Sandeep Hedgire, MD

Nina Meyersohn, MD

Dr. Nina Meyersohn is a graduate of Harvard College magna cum laude and Harvard Medical School. She completed her residency in Diagnostic & Interventional Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by a clinical fellowship in Cardiovascular Imaging and an NIH-funded T32 research fellowship under the guidance of Dr. Udo Hoffmann, chief of Cardiovascular Imaging. She has been an attending clinical radiologist in the Division of Cardiovascular Imaging since 2016 and is involved in ongoing research through the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center, including large multicenter trials such as the PROMISE and REPRIEVE trials and interdisciplinary projects in cardiac CT and MRI with the radiation oncology department and the emergency department. Dr. Meyersohn served as Associate Program Director for the Cardiovascular Imaging Fellowship from 2016 to 2018 and was named Program Director of the fellowship in 2018.

Mike Osborne, MD

Dr. Michael Osborne is a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Associate Director of Nuclear Cardiology: Education at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He graduated summa cum laude with membership in Tau Beta Pi with a degree in biomedical engineering from Vanderbilt University in 2006. He subsequently graduated with honors and membership in the Gold Humanism Honor Society and Alpha Omega Alpha from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine in 2010. Dr. Osborne completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School in 2013. He completed his clinical and research fellowships in cardiovascular medicine and cardiovascular imaging at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 2018. 

Dr. Osborne’s research uses advanced cardiovascular imaging techniques, especially positron emission tomography, to investigate the mechanisms linking psychosocial and environmental stressors to cardiometabolic diseases and to identify early markers of cardiovascular risk. In addition, he is interested in using imaging to characterize the impact of interventions on the link between chronic stress and cardiometabolic disease. Beyond his research, Dr. Osborne is a clinician with interests in nuclear cardiovascular imaging and preventive cardiology.

Vineet Raghu, PhD

Vineet Raghu is a computer scientist and Assistant Professor of Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He completed his PhD in Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh in 2019 where his thesis research focused on developing algorithms to analyze genomic sequencing data to identify genomic causes of cancer progression. He completed a T32 research fellowship in cardiovascular imaging at MGH in 2021 during which he developed artificial intelligence tools to estimate lung cancer risk and biological age from routine chest x-ray images.  

Vineet now leads a machine learning research group that develops tools to predict disease risk and biological age from common imaging tests (e.g., chest x-ray, retinal fundoscopy, chest computed tomography, and dual-energy absorptiometry images) with the goal of identifying patients who may benefit from targeted preventive care. The group also develops machine learning tools to quantify image-derived phenotypes (body composition, organ volumes, etc.) for use in genetic and epidemiological studies. Beyond his research, Vineet teaches data science and introductory programming at Boston University’s Metropolitan College.

Shady Abohashem, MD, MPH, FESC

Dr. Abohashem is an investigator at the Cardiovascular Imaging Center of Massachusetts General Hospital and an Instructor in Radiology at Harvard Medical School. He earned his medical degree in Egypt, a Master of Public Health from Harvard University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cardiovascular imaging at MGH.

Dr. Abohashem’s research focuses on the intersection of advanced non-invasive multimodal imaging and cardiovascular health, with a particular emphasis on the biopsychosocial aspects of heart disease. Leveraging an integrative systems biology approach, he investigates the complex interplay between exposomics, psychosocial stress, health behaviors, inflammation, and cardiovascular disorders. His work integrates imaging, socio-environmental, clinical, genetic, and behavioral phenotypes to uncover mechanisms underlying heart disease. Additionally, he uses real-world data alongside advanced statistical and epidemiological methods to explore the brain-heart axis and its impact on cardiovascular outcomes. This multidisciplinary focus aims to provide a deeper understanding of the intricate relationship between mental and cardiac health. Abohashem’s research is supported by grants from Harvard Medical School, the American Heart Association and National Institute of Health. He is a co-investigator of several NIH funded clinical trials that investigate anti-inflammatory treatment effects on atherosclerotic and thrombotic inflammation in general populations and those with chronic inflammatory conditions such as Rheumatoid Arthritis and HIV. Dr. Abohashem’s contributions to cardiovascular research have been recognized with several accolades, including Young Investigator Awards from the European Society of Cardiology, the American College of Cardiology, and leadership program honors from the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology. He serves on the editorial boards of the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology and Radiology: Cardiothoracic Imaging and is a sought-after speaker and moderator at national and international conferences.”

Azar Radfar, MD, PhD

Azar Radfar, MSc, PhD, MD is a non-invasive cardiologist. She received MSc in Biochemistry at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences and PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. She received her MD degree from Ross University School of Medicine. She completed her Internal Medicine Residency at University of Massachusetts University Hospital, her Cardiology Fellowship at University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital and her Cardiovascular Imaging-Nuclear Cardiology Fellowship at MGH. Her research interests are in applying advanced cardiovascular imaging, especially positron emission tomography, to better understand the mechanisms linking stressors to cardiovascular disease. She will be seeing patients on Yawkey 5, along with doing inpatient coverage and teaching service time, and participating in the Nuclear Cardiology and Echocardiography Labs.

Hugo Aerts, PhD

Hugo Aerts PhD is Director of the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIM) Program at Harvard-MGB. AIM’s mission is to accelerate the application of AI algorithms in medical sciences and clinical practice. This academic program centralizes AI expertise stimulating cross-pollination among clinical and technical expertise areas, and provides a common platform to address a wide range of clinical challenges.

Dr. Aerts is a leader in medical AI and Principle Investigator on major NIH-supported efforts, including the Quantitative Imaging Network (U01) and Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (U24) initiatives of the NCI. In 2020 he was awarded a prestigious ERC Consolidator grant of the Horizon program from the European Union. His research has resulted in numerous peer-reviewed publications in top-tier journals. In 2022 he was awarded by Web of Science as he was among the top 1% highest cited scientists worldwide.

Dr. Aerts is an Associate Professor at Harvard University and an Adjunct Professor at Maastricht University. Dr. Aerts earned his Master in Engineering from Eindhoven Institute of Technology, his PhD from Maastricht University, and his postdoctoral fellowship from Harvard School of Public Health.

Antonia V. Seligowski, PhD

Dr. Seligowski’s Neurocardiac Effects of Stress & Trauma (NEST) Laboratory is housed within the MGH Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center (CIRC). The NEST Lab seeks to understand alterations in the brain-heart connection that arise from stressful or traumatic experiences. PTSD is widely known to be associated with heightened risk for cardiovascular disease and dysfunction, yet the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain unclear. With collaborators in CIRC, the NEST Lab uses techniques in imaging (e.g., FDG-PET) and psychophysiology (e.g., heart rate variability) to probe these mechanisms. Another goal of Dr. Seligowski’s research is to understand sex and gender differences in PTSD and cardiovascular disease. Women are more than two times as likely as men to receive a diagnosis of PTSD, and cardiovascular disease is known to have sex and gender effects. Estradiol has been shown to be a protective factor in both PTSD and cardiovascular disease, pointing to the significance of gonadal hormones in understanding sex and gender differences in these disorders. Thus, Dr. Seligowski’s research also seeks to characterize the different pathways by which men versus women with PTSD experience cardiovascular risk.

Wesam Aldosoky, MD

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.

Matthias Jung, MD

Matthias is a Senior Resident in Radiology and a Research Fellow at CIRC at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard University. He received his MD from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and completed his doctoral thesis (Dr. med.) in Molecular Medicine and Molecular Imaging at the Institute of Biochemistry at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. His research interest is to use artificial intelligence (AI) techniques as opportunistic analysis tools to improve disease prevention and prognosis and to advance precision medicine. Matthias is currently working on using deep learning to estimate measures of aging from whole-body MRI and investigating their association with long-term mortality using data from the German National Cohort (NAKO) and the UK Biobank. For this project, he received a grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Azin Ghamari, MD

Azin is a postdoctoral fellow at the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center (CIRC), affiliated with Mass General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Her academic and professional background encompasses extensive research in the fields of cardiology and epidemiology. Azin has also contributed her medical expertise as a physician and medical assistant at the echocardiography clinic of the Children’s Medical Center of Excellence, which is affiliated with Tehran University of Medical School. In addition to her clinical experiences and research endeavors, Azin has previously held the role of lead manager for a large-scale cohort study in Iran.  Her research pursuits primarily revolve around clinical-translational studies, with a special focus on areas such as heart failure, cardio-oncology, and cardiac imaging. In her current capacity at MGH CIRC, Azin is unwavering in her commitment to elucidating the intricate mechanisms underlying heart failure in individuals living with HIV and in the quest to formulate preventive strategies for this patient population.

Krystel Abi Karam, MD

Krystel is a postdoctoral research fellow at Mass General Hospital. She is passionately engaged in cardiovascular research, specifically focusing on acute coronary syndrome. Her current project explores the intricate relationship between sociopolitical risk factors and cardiovascular events within the general population.

Vencel Juhasz, MD

Vencel completed his medical training in Hungary at Semmelweis University in 2019. Since then, he has been working as a cardiology resident and Ph.D. fellow (as of 2020) at the Heart and Vascular Center of Semmelweis University, specializing in sports cardiology and the uses of cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) in the sophisticated characterization of athletic adaptation. 

His current projects at MGH-CIRC focus on identifying factors that help prevent cardiac dysfunction in diverse cardio-oncology patient groups. This involves a sub-analysis of the STOP-CA study population to investigate further the protective effects of statins against chemotherapy-induced cardiac dysfunction and the investigation of pharmacological therapies that may help mitigate radiation therapy-derived cardiac involvement in breast cancer patients.

Robert Rollings, MD

Dr. Robert Rollings is a research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital.  He graduated with degrees in chemistry and religion from Emory University. He graduated from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1981. Dr. Rollings completed his internship, residency and chief residency in internal medicine at Vanderbilt University Hospitals in 1985.  He completed his clinical and fellowship in cardiovascular medicine at the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont in 1987 and fellowship in cardiovascular MRI at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London in 2001. Dr. Rollings has been in clinical cardiology practice since 1987 in Georgia, where he has implemented and used advanced cardiovascular imaging techniques in direct patient care.  In 2019, he completed the Stress Management and Resiliency Training Program at the Benson Henry Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital. Since that time he has been actively incorporating mind body medicine techniques into clinical cardiology practice.  In 2024, he joined the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital as a research fellow in order contribute to their development and leveraging of novel imaging techniques to address important cardiovascular issues.

Jan Brendel, MD

Jan is a Radiology Resident and Research Fellow at CIRC, Mass General Hospital / Harvard University. He earned his MD and doctoral thesis (Dr. med.) in cardiac imaging from the University of Tuebingen, Germany. His research focuses on cardiac magnetic resonance and cardiac computed tomography, particularly in coronary artery disease. Currently, Jan is working on the REPRIEVE trial, investigating the progression of Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) and the efficacy of statin therapy in people living with HIV. To support his research, Jan was awarded a grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Andre Lupp Mota, MD

Andre is a Research Fellow at the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center (CIRC) at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard University. He is particularly interested in using cardiovascular imaging to investigate surgical conditions, with a focus on the aorta, coronary arteries, and heart valves.

Gagandeep Arora, MD

Gagandeep recently completed his Internal Medicine training at UC Riverside School of Medicine. His research interests lie in advancing cardiac imaging techniques and interventions, with a particular focus on management of mechanical complications of myocardial infarctions. Gagandeep is a clinical fellow at CIRC.

Benjamin Bonner, MD

Ben is a postdoctoral fellow at the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center (CIRC), affiliated with Mass General Hospital/ Harvard Medical School. His research interests center around the development of novel MRI acquisition techniques such as alternative contrast agents and signal processing and motion correction protocols. He is a former Sarnoff Cardiovascular Research Fellow (21’ – 22’).

Ibrahim Hadzic, MS

Ibrahim Hadzic is a pre-doctoral research fellow at the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. He holds a Master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence and is currently completing his PhD at Maastricht University. His research in AI applications for medical imaging spans various areas, including radiotherapy, foundation models, and cardiovascular diseases. His current work focuses on assessing epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) and pericoronary adipose tissue (PCAT) using AI approaches applied to large-scale cohort studies. This innovative research aims to enhance our understanding of cardiovascular risk factors and improve patient outcomes.

Maria Khalil, MBBS

Maria Khalil is a board-certified internal medicine physician who completed her Internal Medicine training and Chief Residency at Loyola University in Chicago. She is currently a research fellow at CIRC and a nuclear cardiology fellow at MGH. In addition to her fellowship, she works on the cardiology step-down unit floor and at the CVD Rehab Center at MGH. Maria is passionate about multimodality imaging and is actively involved in projects that explore cardiovascular disease through various imaging techniques. She is a member of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC), where she was recently selected for the Future Leaders Symposium and serves on the ASNC Member Relations Committee. Her research focuses on the impact of PTSD on the accelerated development of cardiovascular disease risk factors, the interaction between socioeconomic disparities and the genetics of cardiovascular disease, and advanced projects in nuclear cardiology and imaging.

Chong Hui Lau, MBBS

Chong is a research fellow at the CIRC and a nuclear cardiology fellow at MGH. He completed his internship, residency, and chief residency in internal medicine at Crozer Health in 2023. His clinical interests focus on cardiac imaging and coronary microvascular diseases. His research projects explore various topics, including the association of psychiatric polygenic scores with Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, the risk of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) among unmarried individuals, the role of peri-aortic fat as a predictor of MACE, and the impact of PTSD on the development of deep vein thrombosis.

Elissa Polomski, MD

Elissa is a Research Fellow at the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center, affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. She earned her Medical Degree from Leiden University. Her research interest is cardio-oncology, with a particular focus on investigating the cardiovascular side effects of immune checkpoint inhibitors and the imaging of cardiotoxicity resulting from cancer therapies using coronary computed tomography angiography, PET/CT and echocardiography.

Sinead Sinnott, PhD

Sinead Sinnott, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital. She is a research fellow in Clinical Psychology, under the mentorship of Dr. Antonia Seligowski in the Neurocardiac Effects of Stress and Trauma (NEST) laboratory. She is also a postdoctoral fellow in the T32 Harvard Medical School Research Fellowship in Integrative Medicine. Dr. Sinnott completed her predoctoral fellowship at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Her research examines cardiovascular correlates posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), particularly among women. She also examines mechanisms of how behavioral health interventions, such as yoga, meditation, and physical exercise, may reduce cardiovascular risk and PTSD symptoms among individuals with stress-related disorders. 

Nora Kerkovits, MD

Nora is a Research Fellow at CIRC, affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School, and a Radiology Resident at Semmelweis University, Hungary. After completing her medical training, she became a PhD fellow at Semmelweis University, investigating molecular cardiovascular physiology, including inflammatory mechanisms of coronary arteries. Her current research focuses on cardiac computed tomography in coronary artery disease and explores the impact and prognostic relevance of epicardial and pericoronary adipose tissue across cohorts.

Fatima Saeed, MD

Fatima is a research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital with a keen interest in cardiovascular medicine. Her research focuses on the brain-heart axis, exploring its complex interplay and impact on cardiovascular health. A graduate of King Edward Medical University in Lahore, Pakistan, Fatima relocated to the United States to advance her clinical and research expertise. She is deeply committed to unraveling the mechanisms linking neurological and cardiac conditions, contributing to the development of innovative strategies for prevention and treatment.

Senior Administrative Manager

Yuji Liao, M.EC

Yuji works on grants and contracts administration.

Staff Assistant

Peter Donegan, BS

Peter handles CIRC Research personnel for weekly and monthly staff. He acts as a liaison with the GPS International Office, MGH Credential Office, and Harvard Medical School. He also assists with program administration under Yuji Liao and Trinity Nguyen.

Senior Data Analyst

Audra Sturniolo, MS

Audra works in data analysis for a variety of clinical trials at CIRC. She also manages IT for the group.

Sr Clinical Research Program/Project Manager

Kayla Paradis, MBA, BS

Kayla is the Data Coordinating Center (DCC) project manager for the REPRIEVE trial and the project manager for the PROMISE trial. She also provides oversight of general IT/Data Management and QA processes for CT studies under Dr. Michael Lu and Dr. Borek Foldyna.

Clinical Program/Project Manager

Hannah Gilman, BS

Hannah manages the STOP-CA trial with Dr. Tomas Neilan.

Project Manager

Emilia Norton, BS

Emilia works with Dr. Lu and Dr. Foldyna on GOLDILOX-MEDI 6570-TIMI 69 Trial, Rapid Water Flow trial, and the EPIC-HIV and CLEAR-HIV projects.

Clinical Research Coordinator II

Alula Assefa, BS

Alula works with Dr. Tawakol, Dr. Osborne, and their collaborators on numerous studies, including A5415, Heart and Mind, CAD Heart and Mind, RAMDALA, CBT & PTSD, PPG, ARTISAN, CLEAR HIV and EPIC HIV.

Data Analyst

Daniel Oo, BA

Daniel Oo is a data analyst at CIRC/MGH. He joined as an undergraduate student in the Machine Learning Group and has worked on cardiovascular risk prediction using deep learning and radiomics.  He will be conducting research in cardiovascular AI and assisting with the chest X-ray AI clinical trial.

Clinical Research Coordinator

Annmarie Khawand, BS

Annmarie collaborates with Dr. Seligowski and Dr. Osborne on research studies employing FDG-PET imaging and autonomic measures to evaluate the effects of PTSD treatments on cardiovascular mechanisms

Clinical Research Coordinator

Taha Ahmad, BA

Taha is a Clinical Research Coordinator at CIRC/MGH working on several of Dr. Ahmed Tawakol’s studies.

Research Technician II

Ivanna Zorgno, BS

Ivanna is the Research Technician II at the MGH Metabolic Imaging Core (MMIC), working under the guidance of Core Director Dr. Borek Foldyna. Her role includes supervising, performing, and analyzing imaging acquisitions in Magnetic Resonance, Computed Tomography, and Ultrasound, with a primary focus on metabolic disease research. 

Senior Clinical Research Coordinator

Marilyn Galdamez, BS

Marilyn is the Core Manager at the MGH Metabolic Imaging Core (MMIC), responsible for overseeing operations, financial management, and research project facilitation under the leadership of Core Director, Dr. Foldyna. She has extensive experience supervising image acquisition and analysis across Magnetic Resonance, Computed Tomography, and Ultrasound, with a focus on Metabolic Syndrome and associated diseases.

Data Analyst

Lauren Cooke, SM, AB

is a data analyst with a Master’s and Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Harvard. Returning to CIRC after an internship dedicated to Interpretability in Cardiovascular Risk Prediction Models, Lauren’s research focuses on leveraging AI for social impact, particularly in medical and conservation fields. Her recent work concentrated on optimizing inverse reinforcement learning algorithms by refining reward functions to enhance learnability and applicability.

Clinical Research Coordinator II

Takkyung Oh, MPH

Takkyung is a Clinical Research Coordinator II at CIRC/MGH, working with Dr. Lu and Dr. Foldyna on studies, including QA/QC work.

Hannah Kim

Hannah examines the significance of adopting healthier lifestyles in reducing cardiac event likelihood, the impact of psychological conditions on the effectiveness of lifestyle changes on heart health, and potential indirect brain-cardiac connections. Additionally, she contributes to image analysis on PET/CT scans, studying the effect of stress, lifestyles, and diseases on bone marrow reuptake.

Natasha Savianu

Natasha works alongside the Ahmed Tawakol Lab team to study the brain and heart connection. She uses imaging data from the MGB Biobank to uncover the role of stress and other neurological conditions on the development of cardiovascular disease. She is interested in how lifestyle choices can influence or improve the body’s response to stress and, ultimately, cardiovascular health.

Nicki Naddaf

Nicki works with Dr. Ahmed Tawakol to investigate the role of chronic stressors on the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

Kayden Kehe

Kayden is working on discovering the decision-making processes underlying CIRC’s biologic age prediction model (CXR-Age).

Nicholas Jaffer

Nico is a rising sophomore at the University of Chicago and plans to study neuroscience and statistics. He is currently working on analyzing CT scans to determine coeliac ganglia area, which will hopefully in turn provide information on the long term negative effects of stress on body and mental health. He is also working on a study that discusses the impacts of varying income on the gain of cardiovascular risk factors (CVDRFs).

Hamza Zafar

Hamza is currently working under Dr. Shady Abohashem, contributing to projects that integrate imaging and clinical data to explore the impact of socio-environmental factors—such as air, light, and noise pollution—and lifestyle on cardiovascular health. Additionally, he is involved in studies investigating the mechanisms of cardiovascular disease, the role of inflammation markers, and their predictive factors.

Liyuan (Bright) Liu

 Bright is working on a state-of-the-art vision transformer model to predict future mortality and lung cancer risks from chest X-rays.

Ginny Sun, MD

Ginny is working on using large language models to extract clinical data from unstructured medical records.

Zhanqing Hua

Zhanqing (Anthea) Hua is a Master’s student in Genetic Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her research focuses on integrating deep learning methodologies with genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to enhance the understanding of human disease. She is dedicated to exploring the relationships between genomic factors and disease outcomes to improve risk prediction and inform potential interventions. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from Imperial College London.

Currently, Anthea is working on GWAS of deep learning-derived features to uncover the genetic basis of various diseases