Officers and Board of Directors Slate for 2021

The Nominations Committee, chaired by Dr. Jonathan Lindner, has nominated the following candidates for Officers and Directors of the American Society of Echocardiography.

Current members of ASE, please vote for the officers and directors using this ballot.  You may write in nominees in the blank spaces instead of the person nominated.  You may only vote for one person for each position.  The new officers and directors will be introduced at the ASE Presidential Address, Awards and State of the ASE Plenary Session on Saturday, June 19, 2021.  Your ballot must be received by March 20, 2021.  Please review the slate below and cast your vote.  Thank you.

Officer Nominated to Presidential Ladder (One-Year Term – Expires June 2022)

Vice-President
Benjamin Eidem, MD, FASE
Mayo Clinic College of Medicine
Rochester, MN, USA

Dr. Eidem is the Director of the Pediatric & Congenital Echocardiography Laboratory at Mayo Clinic. He specializes in echocardiography, with specific interests in the non-invasive evaluation of systolic and diastolic ventricular function in children with congenital heart disease.  He has published over 150 manuscripts and book chapters and has also presented over 450 abstracts and invited lectures at both national and international scientific meetings. He also is the lead editor of a congenital echocardiography textbook (now in its 3rd edition) as well as a pediatric cardiology board review textbook (now in its 2nd edition).

2020 marked the 25th year of Dr. Eidem’s membership in ASE. His initial introduction to ASE was presenting abstracts at the Scientific Sessions as a Pediatric Cardiology fellow. This was followed by many opportunities to serve on ASE committees and task forces (including FASE, Finance, Nominations, and Guidelines & Standards). He has served as Co-Chair and Chair of the Pediatric & Congenital Heart Disease Council and as Co-Chair and Chair of the Congenital program for the Scientific Sessions. More recently, Dr. Eidem has served on the Executive Committee as Treasurer and Chair of the Finance Committee. He has also served on the Board of Directors.

Dr. Eidem currently serves as Chair of the ASE Education Committee and is on the Board of Directors of the ASE Foundation. He is also an Associate Editor for the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography. He is a member of many medical societies, including the American College of Cardiology, and the Society of Pediatric Echocardiography.

Officer Nominated for Treasurer (Three-Year Term – Expires June 2024)

Cynthia Taub, MD, FASE
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Lebanon, New Hampshire

Over the past 13 years, Dr. Taub, had served as the Director of Echo and Section Head of Non-invasive Cardiology and Cardiac Imaging at Montefiore Medical Center.  She has recently assumed a role as the Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in February 2021.  Dr. Taub oversaw the exponential growth of Montefiore’s echocardiographic service line, one of the high-volume centers in the US.  She was instrumental in the recruitment of skilled faculty that established centers of excellence in multimodality cardiac imaging.  She has demonstrated leadership skills building a collaborative environment and adapting during exceptionally difficult circumstances, most recently exemplified by the COVID-19 pandemic.  She is a prolific clinical investigator with over 100 peer-reviewed publications.

Dr. Taub understands that to survive and thrive in today’s social and economic environment, leaders in the healthcare sector need to exercise a solid understanding of strategy, operations, management, financial and other foundational business principles.  Dr. Taub has volunteered at ASE for over 15 years.  She served on ASE’s Board of Directors from 2015 – 2017.  She was a Co-Chair of International Relations Committee 2017-2019, and a Co-Chair of the Finance Committee from 2019 to present. She has been a leader in expanding the presence of the ASE in China; leading several ASE Foundation outreach events throughout the country.

Dr. Taub received her medical degree from Beijing Medical University in 1993, followed by a Master’s degree in Biology (‘96) from Dartmouth College, an MBA (Healthcare track, ‘20) from Yale School of Management.  She completed postgraduate training in internal medicine at Jersey Shore University Medical Center and clinical cardiology at Hartford Hospital, University of Connecticut.  She completed an Advanced Echocardiography fellowship from the Massachusetts General Hospital.  She is ABIM certified in Cardiovascular Diseases and NBE certified in Adult Comprehensive Echocardiography.

Officer Nominated for Secretary (One-Year Extended Term – Expires June 2022)

Matt Umland
Aurora Health Care
Milwaukee, WI

Mr. Umland is the Echocardiography Quality Director/Advanced Cardiac Sonographer at Aurora Health Care, Milwaukee, WI.

He ensures clinical imaging compliance and achievement of quality standards for the echocardiography departments and assists in the development of operational policies and procedures related to echocardiography quality standards.  Mr. Umland assisted in the development of a cardiac sonography program at Aurora.

Mr. Umland actively participates in ASE activities, including serving on the Awards Committee and Scientific Sessions Program Committee.  He has worked with the program directors of ASE’s State-of-the-Art Echocardiography and Echo Florida courses for many years by coordinating the setup of the learning labs.  He has served as faculty at national and international conferences. He is a former board of director with ASE and a contributor to the first ASE echocardiography textbook (Dynamic Echocardiography).  He is currently serving as chair of the Committee on Accreditation for Advanced Cardiovascular Sonography.

Mr. Umland received his radiologic technologist degree from the Community College of the Air Force in Wichita Falls, TX, his BSRT from Mid-Western State University (Radiography Science Program), and ACS designation while at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN.  Matt is completing a three-year term as ASE’s Secretary.  Due to his excellent work in this role, he will be extending this service for an additional one year term.

Directors Nominated to Serve Two-Year Terms (Terms Expire June 2023)

Anthony Gallagher, RDCS (AE, PE), FASE, MBA
Wellstar Kennestone Hospital
Marietta, GA

Mr. Gallagher is the Director of Noninvasive Cardiology at Wellstar Kennestone Hospital which has over 600+ beds and is one of eleven hospitals within the Wellstar Health System. In that role, he oversees the inpatient noninvasive cardiology lab, five hospital outpatient departments, and two cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation centers.

Mr. Gallagher has been a member of the American Society of Echocardiography since 1989.  He is also a Fellow in the American Society of Echocardiography. He has taught pediatric echocardiography to Pediatric Fellows at the University of Miami and has lectured on Diastolic Dysfunction at a regional echo conference in Rome, Georgia. He has also participated in the ‘ASE visits the hill,’ served on the ASE Advocacy Committee, and is currently a member of the ASE Industry Round Table. Mr. Gallagher firmly believes in investing in the future of echocardiography and in giving back to the community by endeavoring to provide clinical rotations for echo students at every facility he has worked.

Mr. Gallagher holds a master’s degree in Healthcare Administration from American Sentinel University and has earned his bachelor’s in organizational management from Covenant College. He holds a registry in both Adult and Pediatric Echo and has achieved lab accreditation for various facilities; these included a mobile ultrasound company, a multi-hospital system, and a university hospital. The strength that he brings to the Board of Directors is his knowledge of hospital operations and how echocardiography can work beyond its walls to collaborate with various hospital departments.  He has served on multiple teams that have helped hospitals achieve Chest Pain and Stroke Certifications. Additionally, he is currently a member of the team that earned the first JCAHO Comprehensive Cardiac Care Center (C4) certification in Georgia.

Leo Lopez, MD, FASE
Stanford University School of Medicine, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford
Palo Alto, CA

Dr. Lopez is the Medical Director of Echocardiography at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine, having moved two years ago from Miami where he served as the Medical Director of Noninvasive Cardiac Imaging and Associate Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the Herbert Wertheim School of Medicine at Florida International University.

Dr. Lopez is a former President of the Society of Pediatric Echocardiography, past Chair of the American Society of Echocardiography Council on Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease, President-Elect of the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission, and current Vice-President of the International Society for Nomenclature of Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease. He was the Program Chair of the Congenital Track for ASE 2010 and has served on numerous ASE committees since 2005, including the Membership Steering Committee, Council on Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease Steering Committee, Program Committee, Nominations Committee, Echovation Task Force, Registry Committee, and Industry Round Table Committee. In addition, he served on the ASE Board of Directors as Council Chair and Member-at-Large from 2013 to 2016. Lastly, he has participated and held other leadership roles in committees within the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association and is a frequent faculty speaker at the annual scientific sessions of the Association of European Pediatric Cardiology and the European Association of Echocardiography and Cardiovascular Imaging.

He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and completed his pediatric residency and pediatric cardiology fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. His research interests include pediatric echocardiographic quantification, normative echocardiographic Z-scores, quality metrics for cardiac noninvasive imaging, and ventricular mechanics and remodeling. In addition, he has been a co-author on four ASE pediatric guidelines and standards documents since 2010 and is now the co-chair of the ASE writing committee drafting an update to the guidelines for the performance of a pediatric echocardiogram.

Susan Mayer, MD, FASE
Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart and Vascular Institute
Kansas City, MO

Dr. Mayer is a cardiologist at Saint Luke’s and her focus is on noninvasive imaging and patients with valvular heart disease and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy for the past 2 years. Prior to coming to Saint Luke’s, Dr. Mayer was on the faculty of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and served as a Medical Director for the Echo for Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center for nearly 15 years and was the Co-Director for the Advanced Echo Fellowship and Director of Echo Education. On behalf of the Johns Hopkins International and Cardiology Divisions, she trained five cardiology fellows in echocardiography in Trinidad and Tobago.  In 2018, she was selected by the cardiology fellows for the annual Teaching Award.

Dr. Mayer has been a member of the American Society of Echocardiography since her cardiology fellowship. She has served on the Task Force for Education of Cardiology Fellows for 2 years and has been on the Advocacy Committee for the past 6 years and became the Vice Chair of committee in 2019 and Chair in 2020.  She has represented the ASE at the Alliance of Specialty Medicine meetings, MACRA-Episode Based Cost Measures Clinical Sub-Committee and more recently on the AMA CPT Editorial Advisory Panel as an alternate. She has played an important role in submission of CPT codes in echocardiography. Over the past year, she has advocated for PPE supplies and relaxing state licensure requirements during the COVID pandemic and has been involved in educational efforts on the changes in E/M coding with a webinar for our members.  Recently, Dr. Mayer has been selected as Chair for the Writing Group on an Update of Evolving Trends in the Use of Echocardiography: A Study in Medicare Beneficiaries. Lastly, Dr. Mayer went on a humanitarian outreach event to Vietnam on behalf of the ASE Foundation in 1997.

Dr. Mayer went to medical school at Loyola Stritch School of Medicine and completed post-graduate training in internal medicine, chief residency, cardiology fellowship and advanced echo fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine. She is board certified in Cardiovascular Disease and National Board of Echocardiography in Comprehensive Echocardiography and a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and American Society of Echocardiography.

Kian Keong Poh, MBBChir, FASE
National University Heart Centre
Singapore

Dr. Poh is a senior consultant cardiologist in the Department of Cardiology at the National University Heart Centre Singapore (NUHCS) and Director of Research, in the Department of Cardiology, NUHCS. He is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore.

Dr. Poh’s research activities and peer-reviewed publications include use of 3D echocardiography in valvular heart disease; echocardiographic and clinical predictors of outcomes in valvular heart disease focusing on aortic stenosis.  He and his team have investigated on how Asians differ in aortic stenosis management and the phenotype of low-flow low-gradient aortic stenosis despite preserved left ventricular ejection fraction.  His interest and work also relate to contrast echocardiography, vortex formation, speckle tracking echocardiography, echocardiography in ischemia heart disease, heart failure and cardio-metabolic conditions.

Dr. Poh has contributed to the ASE for more than a decade, serving regularly as faculty in the annual scientific meetings.  He has also served as Co-Chair for all 3 ASE-ASEAN echocardiographic meetings, held in Bangkok and Manila.  Currently and for several years, he serves on the international relations advisory committee as liaison for ASE representing south Asia.  In addition, he is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography.

Dr. Poh is a graduate from Cambridge University, UK and completed his clinical and research fellowship in echocardiography at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, affiliated with Harvard University. He obtained his diplomate of NBE in transesophageal and transthoracic echocardiography in 2004. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Society of Echocardiography. He is also a Past President of the Singapore Cardiac Society and steering committee member for the International Assembly of Governors, ACC. He is the founding Vice-Chair of the Asean Society of Echocardiography and during his term, the Asean society become part of the World Alliance of Echocardiography in the ASE.

Thomas Ryan, MD, FASE
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH

Dr. Ryan is the director of The Ohio State University Heart and Vascular Center and Executive Director of the Ross Heart Hospital. He holds the John G. and Jeanne Bonnet McCoy Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine and leads the Medical Center’s Heart Program. Dr. Ryan also serves as a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Ohio State’s Medical Center.

Dr. Ryan earned his medical degree from Indiana University School of Medicine and holds an MBA from Duke University Fuqua School of Business in Durham, N.C. He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in cardiology at Indiana University where he worked in the echo laboratory under Dr. Harvey Feigenbaum.

Dr. Ryan has authored or co-authored more than 200 published articles, book chapters and abstracts. He is a national expert on cardiac ultrasound, and co-author of Feigenbaum’s Echocardiography, the leading textbook in the field of cardiovascular ultrasound. Dr. Ryan is a member of several professional organizations, including the American Society of Echocardiography, of which he is a former president (2007-2008).

Directors Nominated to Serve One-Year Term (Terms Expire June 2022)

Jordan Strom, MD, MSc, FASE
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA

Dr. Strom is Director of Clinical Echocardiography Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School He received his B.S. in Biology from Yale University and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, before subsequently training in Internal Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital and in Cardiovascular Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center where he was Chief Fellow for the 2017-2018 year.  He received additional post-graduate training in Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, receiving an M.Sc. in Epidemiology in May 2018.

Dr. Strom was the inaugural fellow and is currently a faculty investigator at the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology.  His research involves evaluation of the relationship of cardiac structure and function to health outcomes, particularly for valvular heart disease. Additionally, his research focuses on the optimal use and timing of cardiac imaging in practice.  He specializes in the analysis of large administrative, registry, and clinical trial data, in particular imaging registries.  He has received grant funding for this work from the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health and he has published more than 50 peer-reviewed publications in journals such as Circulation, European Heart Journal, and the Annals of Internal Medicine.  He serves as a guest editor and Editorial Board member for the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography and is a member of the ACC Imaging Council Leadership committee.

Dr. Strom was a member of the inaugural class of the American Society of Echocardiography’s Leadership Academy and is the inaugural member elected to the ASE Board of Directors in this capacity.  In addition to his role as Co-Chair of the ImageGuideEcho Research and Publications Committee and a member of the ImageGuideEcho registry committee, he serves on the Public Relations Committee and has been a Twitter moderator for several ASE Journal Clubs and ASE Scientific Sessions.  He is a member of the ASE Leadership Academy Selection Task Force and additionally is the ACC representative to the board of directors of the Joint Review Committee on Education in Diagnostic Medical Sonography (JRC-DMS) which oversees training in diagnostic medical sonography in the US.

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June 2021- June 2022 Board of Directors
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

President (term expires June 2022)
Raymond Stainback, MD, FASE
Texas Heart Institute, Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center
Houston, TX

President-Elect (term expires June 2022)
Stephen Little, MD, FASE
Houston Methodist Hospital
Houston, TX

Vice President (term expires June 2022)
Nomination Above

Treasurer (term expires June 2024)
Nomination Above

Secretary (extended one-year term expires June 2022)
Nomination Above

Council Representative (term expires June 2022)
Meryl Cohen, MD, FASE

Children’s Hospital
Philadelphia, PA

Immediate Past President (term expires June 2022)
Judy W. Hung, MD, FASE
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, MA

Chief Executive Officer

Robin Wiegerink, MNPL
American Society of Echocardiography
Durham, NC

DIRECTORS (terms expire June 2022)

Council on Cardiovascular Sonography Chair
Keith Collins, MS, RDCS, FASE
Northwestern Medicine
Chicago, IL

Council on Circulation & Vascular Ultrasound Chair
Bryan Wells, MD, FASE
Emory University
Atlanta, GA

Past President Member
Nomination Above

Member at Large
Vandana Sachdev, MD, FASE
National Institute of Health
Bethesda, MD

Member at Large
Vincent Sorrell, MD, FASE
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY

Member at Large
Ritu Thamman, MD, FASE
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA

Member at Large
Danita Sanborn, MD, FASE
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, MA

International Member
Nomination Above

DIRECTORS (terms expire June 2023)

Member at Large
Nomination Above

Member at Large
Nomination Above

Member at Large
Nomination Above

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