The Nominations Committee, chaired by Dr. Stephen Little, 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 only vote for one person for each position, and can write in nominees in the blank spaces instead of selecting the person nominated. Your ballot must be received by April 10, 2025. Please review the slate below and cast your vote. Thank you.
Officer Nominated to Presidential Ladder (One-Year Term – Expires June 2026)
Vice-President: Federico Asch, MD, FASE, MedStar Health Research Institute, Washington, DC
Federico M. Asch, MD, FASE, is an academic cardiologist with expertise in echocardiography and cardiac imaging, with particular contributions to the field in the areas of Structural Heart Disease, Global Cardiovascular Health, Development of Novel Technologies and CV Education/Standards. He is the Director of the Cardiovascular Core Labs and Cardiac Imaging Research at MedStar Health Research Institute and Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
A native of Argentina, he obtained his medical degree at Universidad de Buenos Aires and his Cardiology training at Instituto Cardiovascular de Buenos Aires and at Georgetown University and MedStar Washington Hospital Center in D.C. Dr. Asch is the imaging lead investigator for multiple clinical trials sponsored by industry, NHLBI, AHA, and ASE with a main focus on structural heart disease, cardiomyopathies, and novel Artificial Intelligence-related technologies. Among other trials, Dr. Asch is co-Principal Investigator for the WASE Normal Values Study, a multinational initiative of the ASE to determine similarities and differences in cardiac size and function among individuals from multiple races and nationalities. He has published over 230 peer-reviewed manuscripts in journals including JASE, the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Circulation, JACC, Annals of Thoracic Surgery, and EHJ CV Imaging.
Dr. Asch is a global collaborator and a frequent invited speaker at national and international meetings. Among others, he has received career awards from the Argentinian Society of Cardiology (SAC), the Mexican National Society of Echocardiography (SONECOM), as well as an award as distinguished personality in the field of Medical Sciences issued by the government of the City of Buenos Aires (Argentina).
Dr. Asch’s leadership within ASE reflects directly on his personal career Mission: to enhance patient care through the use of Cardiac Ultrasound. His goals are to improve practice standards (past Chair of Guidelines, WASE), Education (Chair of ASE Scientific Sessions and Echo World Summit in 2024), technological advancements (development and adoption of machine learning and AI, IRT Committee, Industry Accelerator Working Group, imaging leader in Interventional Echocardiography), and working with global leaders to address needs of the international community (Chair of the International Advisory Committee, the World Summit, WASE program, and ASEF Global Missions).
Dr. Asch envisions serving as the engine for creative collaboration with ASE’s diverse Society, representing and embracing equally each and every membership group, from physicians in all specialties to sonographers, working with pediatric and adult patients, from Americans to internationals, early career and fellows to senior members. Federico is committed to fostering a welcoming environment for emerging users of CV Ultrasound.
Director Nominated for Leadership Academy Representative (Two-Year Term – Expires June 2027)
Shiraz Maskatia, MD, FASE, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California
Shiraz Maskatia, MD, FASE, is a Clinical Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. He serves as Director of Advanced Cardiac Imaging and of the Pediatric Advanced Cardiac Imaging fellowship. His clinical, research, and academic interests include those related to echocardiography, fetal cardiology, and cardiac MRI. He received his medical degree from the University of Chicago, Prtizker School of Medicine (Chicago, IL), completed residency in Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine, fellowships in Pediatric Cardiology and Advanced Cardiac Imaging at Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, TX).
Dr. Maskatia’s career is focused on the diagnosis and risk assessment of cardiac disease using echocardiography. His career is devoted to using imaging technology to improve the lives of children and families affected by congenital and acquired heart disease. He has investigated the use of fetal and transthoracic echocardiography and cardiac MRI to improve diagnosis and prognosis of cardiac diseases such as coarctation of the aorta, tetralogy of Fallot, hypoplastic left heart syndrome, pulmonary atresia intact ventricular septum, aortic stenosis, and twin-twin transfusion syndrome.
He works collaboratively with investigators from other institutions through multi-center collaborations to advance the care of children with heart disease. Dr. Maskatia has been a Fellow of the ASE since 2017, has served on several committees, and was a member of the 3rd cohort of the ASE Leadership Academy. He is currently a member of the Awards and Guidelines and Standards Committees, and is currently serving as Director of the Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease Virtual Course.
Director Nominated for Past President Representative (Two-Year Term – Expires June 2027)
Vera Rigolin, MD, FASE, Northwestern Medicine, Chicago, Illinois
Vera H. Rigolin, MD, FASE, is a cardiologist at Northwestern Medicine and Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She specializes in echocardiography and valvular heart disease. She is currently the Director of the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute (BCVI) System Echocardiography Quality. She previously served as the medical director of the echocardiography laboratory at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. She also served as the program director for Northwestern’s general cardiology fellowship program and the advanced cardiac imaging training program.
Dr. Rigolin attended medical school at Northwestern University, where she also completed her internship, residency, and chief residency. She then completed a fellowship in cardiology at Duke University Medical Center. She is board certified in cardiovascular disease and echocardiography.
ASE has been the most important professional society in Dr. Rigolin’s career. She held several important leadership positions within ASE including member of the Board of Directors and executive committee, Chair of the Scientific Sessions, Chair of the Board of the ASE Foundation, Director of Cohort 3 of the Leadership Academy, and President of the Society from 2017-2018. She looks forward to returning the Board of Directors as the past-president representative in mid-2025.
Directors Nominated (Two-Year Term – Expires June 2027)
Karima Addetia, MD, FASE, University Chicago Heart and Vascular Center, Chicago, Illinois
Karima Addetia, MD, FASE, is an Associate Professor, Director of Structural and Interventional Imaging and Acting Co-Director Cardiac MRI/CT Program at the University Chicago Heart and Vascular Center in Chicago Illinois. She is a structural imager and a multi-modality imager with expertise in echocardiography, cardiac CT, and cardiovascular MRI. She received her medical degree from Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada. She went on to complete her Internal Medicine Residency also at Memorial University of Newfoundland. From there she went to McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada to complete fellowships in Cardiology and Echocardiography. She then traveled south to University of Chicago to learn 3D echocardiography and to further her research interests by joining the research team headed by Dr. Roberto Lang. During that time she completed fellowships in both cardiac MRI and cardiac CT.
Dr. Addetia’s interests include 3D echocardiography and advanced imaging techniques, the right heart, valvular heart disease, and cardiac chamber remodeling. She is board-certified in cardiovascular disease (both in the US and Canada) and cardiovascular MRI and is a diplomate in adult echocardiography. She is level III trained in Cardiac CT.
Dr. Addetia has been a Fellow of the ASE since 2010 and has served on a number of committees including the Education, Research, 3D/4D subcommittee of the IRT and the Guidelines and Standards committee. She was also a member of the ASE Scientific Sessions Committee in 2020. She is an author of the ASE Formula Guide and member of the guideline committee involved in the preparation of the upcoming ASE Echocardiography in Pulmonary Hypertension Guidelines. She has been an abstract judge for the ASE Scientific Sessions for nearly 10 years (since 2015). She is also a member of the JASE Editorial Board.
She is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and a current member of the ACC Imaging Council. She is actively involved in research in echocardiography and has authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications some in high-impact journals such as JACC, JACC Imaging, Circulation Cardiovascular Imaging, European Heart Journal Cardiovascular Imaging, and the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography.
Monica Mukherjee, MD, FASE, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
Monica Mukherjee, MD, FASE, is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at Johns Hopkins University. She serves as Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Echocardiography Program, Medical Director of the Echocardiography Laboratory at Johns Hopkins Bayview, and Program Director of the Advanced Specialty Training Program in Echocardiography.
Her clinical and research expertise in advanced echocardiography is reflected in numerous guidelines, scientific statements, original research publications, editorials, and invited reviews. In 2020, she was awarded the prestigious Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Clinician Scientist Award. Dr. Mukherjee graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida with dual degrees in Behavioral Neuroscience and Psychology. She earned her medical degree from George Washington University, completed her internal medicine training at Drexel University, and returned to George Washington University for a fellowship in cardiovascular disease. She also holds a Master’s in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School, specializing in epidemiological and biostatistical methods, and was awarded the Dean’s Scholarship.
She serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American Heart Association, Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging, and the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography. Additionally, she is a member of the ASE Research Oversight Committee, the AHA Cardiac Imaging and Intervention Committee, the AHA 3CPR Council, and the ACC Cardiovascular Imaging Council. She is the Writing Chair for the upcoming ASE guidelines on right heart and pulmonary hypertension. Dr. Mukherjee is supported by the NIH/NHLBI, the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Scleroderma Foundation, and the CHEST Foundation.
Dermot Phelan, MB, BAO, BCh, PhD, FASE, Atrium Health Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute Charlotte, North Carolina
Dermot Phelan, MB, BAO, BCh, PhD, FASE, is Professor of Medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the Gragg Endowed Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine. He serves as Medical Director of Cardiovascular Imaging, Director of the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center, and Director of the Gragg Center for Cardiovascular Performance at Atrium Health Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute (SHVI) in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Dr. Phelan completed his cardiology training in Ireland before pursuing an advanced imaging fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic, where he remained for nearly a decade. At SHVI, he leads system-wide efforts to integrate multimodality cardiovascular imaging, enhancing diagnostic accuracy and patient care through innovative imaging protocols and quality improvement initiatives.
His research and clinical expertise focus on the echocardiographic assessment of cardiomyopathies, the athlete’s heart, and advanced imaging in structural heart disease. He was Co-Chair of the Multimodality Imaging Guidelines for Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) and is an active member of the 2024 ASE HCM Forum. His work in strain imaging for cardiomyopathies, including his seminal description of the “apical sparing” pattern in cardiac amyloidosis, has been widely cited and integrated into clinical practice.
Dr. Phelan plays a leading role in Sports Cardiology, serving as Cardiology Consultant for the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB) Scouting Combines, Chair of the NFL Cardiovascular Task Force, and a member of the Cardiovascular Advisory Committee for the National Basketball Association (NBA) since 2015.
As a member of the ASE Competitive Athlete Writing Group, he has helped write the recommendations for how to best evaluate the heart of the athlete and is the editor of a seminal book on Sports Cardiology entitled “Care of the Athletic Heart; From the Clinic to the Sidelines”. He serves as a member of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Sports and Exercise Cardiology Leadership Council and served as Chair of the ACC national Sports Cardiology Conference, “The Care of the Athletic Heart”, in 2022 and 2023. His team at SHVI oversees quality assurance for echocardiographic assessments across the NBA, WNBA, and G-League, reviewing over 1,000 studies annually to ensure imaging consistency and diagnostic accuracy.
An active ASE member, Dr. Phelan serves as Chair of the ASE Advocacy Committee, leading national efforts on echocardiography policy, reimbursement, and regulatory issues. He is the incoming Co-Chair of the 2025 ASE Scientific Sessions and has contributed to multiple ASE committees and guideline-writing groups.
Lissa Sugeng, MD, FASE, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut
Lissa Sugeng, MD, FASE, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. She is the Co-Director of the Yale Echo Corelab (Yale Cardiovascular Research Group) and Interventional Echocardiographer at the West Haven VA, Connecticut VA Health System.
She graduated medical school from Udayana University (Bali, Indonesia), earned her MPH degree from Boston University, trained in Internal Medicine at UMASS Medical Center and finished Cardiology and Echocardiography Fellowship in 2002 at the University of Chicago.
Dr. Lissa Sugeng’s interest and research focus has been three-dimensional echocardiography (3DE), its use in structural and valvular heart disease, and the integration of 3DE in routine clinical cardiology. Her focus on 3DE stems back to 1993 and has been involved in the development of testing new 3D technology since 2001. She established the Yale Echo Corelab in 2011, became the Yale Echolab Director and started the interventional echo program at Yale New Haven Hospital in 2012. In 2019, she became the Medical Director over all Echolabs in the YNHH System and subsequently in 2021, took on the role of System Director of Cardiovascular Imaging at Northwell Health which is the largest health system to achieve Systemwide Echo IAC accreditation.
Dr. Sugeng has been a member of ASE since 2000 and is on the editorial board of the CASE journal. She is currently on the CoA-ACS Board of Directors as the ASE representative, and has served on the IRT committee, International Relations committee, Research committee, Award committee member and ASE Foundation committee. Locally, she is a founding member of the New England Society of Echocardiography and supports the Connecticut Society of Echocardiography.
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June 2025 – June 2026 Board of Directors
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
President (term expires June 2026) David Wiener, MD, FASE Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, PA
President-Elect (term expires June 2026) Cynthia Taub, MD, MBA, FASE, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY
Vice President (term expires June 2026) Nomination Above
Treasurer (term expires June 2027) Akhil Narang, MD, FASE, Northwestern Medicine, Chicago, IL
Secretary (term expires June 2026) Melissa Wasserman, RDCS, RCCS, FASE, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
Council Representative (term expires June 2026) Kelly Thorson, DHSc, MSRS, ACS, RDCS, FASE, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, Palo Alto, CA
Immediate Past President (term expires June 2026) Theodore Abraham, MD, FASE, University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
Chief Executive Officer Robin Wiegerink, MNPL American Society of Echocardiography Durham, NC
DIRECTORS (terms expire June 2026)
Cardiovascular Sonography Council Chair Allyson Boyle, MHA, ACS, RDCS, FASE Sanger Heart and Vascular Institute – Atrium Health Charlotte, NC
Circulation & Vascular Ultrasound Council Chair Matthew Vorsanger, MD, FACC, RPVI, FASE NYU Grossman School of Medicine New York, NY
Interventional Echocardiography Council Chair Nishath Quader, MD, FASE Washington University in St. Louis St. Louis, MO
Member at Large Kristen Billick, BS, ACS, RCS, RDCS (AE, PE) FASE, Scripps Clinic and La Jolla Hospital, La Jolla, CA
Member at Large Jennifer Liu, MD, FASE, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
Member at Large Kameswari Maganti, MD, FACC, FASE, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ
International Representative Tony Forshaw, M Cardiac Ultrasound, B Ex Sci, AMS (Cardiac), FASE, Queensland University of Technology, Queensland, Australia
DIRECTORS (terms expire June 2027)
Pediatric & Congenital Heart Disease Council Chair Pei-Ni Jone, MD, FACC, FAHA, FASE Lurie Children’s Hospital, Chicago, IL
Perioperative Echocardiography Council Chair Douglas Shook, MD, FASE Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA
Member at Large Nomination Above
Member at Large Nomination Above
Member at Large Nomination Above
Member at Large Nomination Above
Leadership Academy Representative Nomination Above
Past President Representative Nomination Above