As we approach our Annual Scientific Meeting we are excited to acknowledge that, for the first time ever, all invited named lectures are women: RD Wright Lecturer: Prof. Martha Gulati, Colin I Johnston Lecturer: A/Prof Elisabeth Lambert and Austin Doyle Lecturer: Prof. Suzanne Cory. The 2019 Paul Korner Awardee Prof. Louise Burrell will also be presenting on her research achievements, and the American Heart Association nominee is our own A/Prof Francine Marques. To celebrate this milestone, on behalf of the Council, Dr Anastasia Mihailidou has organised a Women in Hypertension Spotlight session.
The Women in Hypertension Spotlight session will be chaired by Dr. Anastasia Mihailidou and Dr. Audrey Adji and will include multiple speakers who will share their career highlights and their personal/career challenges and strategies they have used to progress or in some cases didn’t progress.
Speakers and Chairs Include:
Dr. Anastasia Mihailidou: Anastasia runs the Diagnostic Service for 24-Hour Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (AMBP) and is Head of Cardiovascular & Hormonal Research, Kolling Institute. Her biomedical research focus is regulation of mineralocorticoid receptors in the heart & sex differences in ischemic heart disease. Her contribution to the field was recognized by the American Heart Association appointing her as Fellow. Anastasia has similarly enthusiastically translated her passion for accurate blood pressure measurement and research to clinical practice with revising the Australian Guidelines for AMBP and implementing an online training module for standardizing clinical measurement of blood pressure. The elearning module is included in the curriculum of the University of Sydney Nursing and has been accredited by the Royal College of General Practitioners. Her contribution to the hypertension field is recognized by her appointment on the international Advisory Board of the STRIDE_BP to standardize blood pressure measurement and she was appointed by the Lancet as one of their Commissioners for their Commission on Cardiovascular Disease in Women.
Dr. Audrey Adji: Audrey is a PhD graduate from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, in 2016. Dr Adji’s research focus is to characterise change in cardiac ejection pattern, cardiac contractility and pulsatile function of human circulation due to aging and cardiovascular diseases. This is achieved using hemodynamic approach through application of both medicine and engineering principles to cardiac physiology. She has been working on this topic since obtaining her Master of Biomedical Engineering degree from University of New South Wales, Sydney, in 2001. She has extended her research on pulsatile circulatory function to the effect of arterial pressure on the cerebral circulation through collaborative work worldwide.
Prof. Martha Gulati: As division chief of Cardiology for the UA College of Medicine – Phoenix and physician executive director for the Banner – University Medicine Heart Institute, Dr. Martha Gulati leads educational activities in cardiovascular sciences for medical students, residents and fellows at the college and Banner Health. She also heads clinical heart care as the director of the Cardiovascular Institute at Banner. She completed medical school at the University of Toronto, Canada; her internship, residency and cardiology fellowship at the University of Chicago; is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association; and is board-certified in cardiovascular disease. Dr. Gulati is passionate about the study of women and heart disease, as well as about its prevention. As the principal investigator of the St. James Women Take Heart Project, a study examining cardiac risk factors in women, she’s helped to set new standards for women’s fitness levels and heart rate response to exercise in women. In addition, she is a co-investigator on the Women Ischemic Syndrome Evaluation (WISE); she previously served as a co-investigator on the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI); is a member of numerous advisory boards and societies, including the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology; and has published articles in peer-reviewed publications, such as The New England Journal of Medicine, Circulation and Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Her exceptional commitment to this prevalent health issue has also won her numerous awards and distinctions.
Prof. Kate Denton: Kate is currently a Professor in the Department of Physiology at Monash University. An integrative physiologist her research focuses on cardiovascular and renal physiology, with a particular emphasis on the role of the kidney in the regulation of arterial pressure. Current projects examine sex-differences in the role of the renin-angiotensin in arterial pressure regulation, the impact of a hypertension during pregnancy on mothers and offspring, the development of non-invasive imaging methods to track CKD progression and renal denervation as a treatment for hypertension and CKD.
Dr. Maria Jelinic: Maria is a joint NHMRC and National Heart Foundation Early Career Fellow at La Trobe University. Since completing her PhD (2017) in vascular physiology, her research has focused on elucidating mechanisms that drive cardiac and renal complications in cardiometabolic disease. Maria specialises in using rodent models of cardiovascular disease to test the impact of pharmacological interventions and genetic modifications on disease parameters. In her short career to date, she has produced 22 publications (with over 450 citations), and secured over $635,000 in competitive funding. She is also passionate about training the next generation of scientists to build on Australia’s capacity in biomedical research and has over 7 years’ experience training both undergraduate and HDR students in physiology.