CIRC: Group Members

Email: kakaram@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Beirut, Lebanon
Education: Saint-Joseph University of Beirut, Faculty of Medicine, Beirut, Lebanon
Current Projects & Research: Krystel is a postdoctoral research fellow at Mass General Hospital. She passionately engages in cardiovascular research, specifically acute coronary syndrome. Her current project explores the intricate relationship between sociopolitical risk factors and cardiovascular events within the general population.

Email: waldosoky@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Mansoura, Egypt
Graduate Education: University of Mansoura, MD
Current Projects & Research: 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.

Email: sdoroodgar-jorshery@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Toronto, Canada
Education: Shahid Beheshti (National) University of Medical Sciences, MD-MPH
Current Projects & Research: Saman is a postdoctoral fellow in the Machine Learning group of the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard University. Prior to joining the team at MGH CIRC, Saman was a vascular surgery resident at Yale, after which he pursued Machine Learning training at the University of Toronto/Vector Institute under supervision of Canada Research Chair, Dr. Ghassemi. Saman’s collaborative research in the Machine Learning for Health (ML4H) group between UofT/Vector Institute, MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Sciences, and the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard has resulted in multiple conference presentations and publications. His current research at the MGH CIRC is funded by an Impetus Grant for Aging Research entitled "Understanding ImAging: Discovering imaging biomarkers and genetic modifiers of organ-specific accelerated aging through deep learning of whole-body MRI data”. The aim of the project is to improve early detection, to increase scientific knowledge, and identify potential treatments for age-related chronic disease by identifying individuals with accelerated aging from imaging data who are at high-risk for development of future disease.

Email: aghamari@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Tehran, Iran
Education: Tehran University of Medical Sciences, MD
Current Projects & Research: 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 cardiology and epidemiology. Azin has also contributed her medical expertise as a physician and medical assistant at the Children’s Medical Center of Excellence echocardiography clinic, 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, focusing on 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.

Hometown: Chandigarh, India
Education: Dayanand Medical College, India (MBBS)
Current Projects & Research: Mangun's ongoing research at the Mass General Hospital encompasses several pivotal projects. Her work includes the selective use of FFRCT and its substantial impact on patient outcomes, exploring the epidemiology of coronary artery disease among individuals with HIV in Uganda, researching CTA-derived quantitative imaging parameters in Bicuspid-Aortic Valve associated aortopathy, and the CORODECT project, focusing on investigating MSU crystal deposition in gout patients. Her research also delves into developing a QA and educational tool to correlate CT reporting of coronary artery disease with invasive coronary angiography. Beyond these scientific pursuits, Mangun's skills in medical illustration bring a unique and comprehensive perspective to her work.

Email: vjuhasz@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Budapest, Hungary
Education: Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary
Current Projects & Research: Vencel is a Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center (CIRC) research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. 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 investigate pharmacological therapies that may help mitigate radiation therapy-derived cardiac involvement in breast cancer patients.

Email: mjung6@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
Education: University of Erlangen–Nuremberg, MD Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Germany, Resident
Current Projects & Research: Matthias is a Senior Resident in Radiology and a Research Fellow at CIRC at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard University. 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.

Email: mlangenbach@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Cologne, Germany
Education: Institute for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Frankfurt, University of Frankfurt, Germany, MD, and Institute for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Germany, MD.
Current Projects & Research: Marcel is a research fellow at CIRC / Mass General Hospital and a board-certified radiologist at the University Hospital Cologne. He graduated and earned his doctorate from the University of Frankfurt, Germany, and completed his residency at the University Hospitals in Frankfurt and Cologne, Germany. His research interest includes cardiac computed tomography with a focus on coronary artery disease and clinical implementation. Marcel currently works on the PROMISE trial investigating the role of air pollution and socio-economic factors on coronary artery disease. Further, he received a grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG) to investigate the relationship between peri-coronary adipose tissue and coronary artery disease.

Email: ibreidert@mgh.harvard.edu
Hometown: Cologne, Germany
Education: Institute for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Germany, MD.
Current Projects & Research: Isabel is a research fellow at CIRC / Mass General Hospital and is in her 2nd year of radiology residency at the University Hospital Cologne. She graduated and earned her doctoral degree from the University of Cologne, Germany. Her research interest includes cardiac computed tomography with a focus on women and inflammation, coronary artery disease, clinical implementation, and heart valve imaging. Isabel currently works on the INFORM trial investigating the role of inflammation in women with HIV for coronary artery disease. Further, she is involved in the PROMISE trial.