Meet the leadership team

2

LIBIN LIFE

Fresh perspective

New leadership team to guide Libin Cardiovascular Institute

Director

Dr. Paul Fedak, MD, PhD Dr. Paul Fedak took over as director of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute in August 2019. He is a cardiac surgeon, researcher and educator, internationally recognized for his commitment to new surgical therapies for patients with advanced heart disease.

An international speaker, journal editor and multiple-award-winning surgeon and researcher, Fedak was recruited to the University of Calgary as a surgeon-scientist. He is the director of the Marlene and Don Campbell Family Cardiac Research Laboratory at the Cumming School of Medicine (CSM) with a research interest in developing novel ways to treat cardiovascular disease. He has more than 150 peer-reviewed manuscripts, numerous published book chapters and over 10,000 citations of his work.

In his role, Dr. Fedak is responsible for realizing the Institute’s vision of precision cardiovascular health, internationally recognized and funded research, and multidisciplinary educational programs that attract quality learners. By promoting integration of the state-of-the-art enabling platforms within the Libin Cardiovascular Institute with clinical operations, he hopes to improve value and patient-centered care.

Physician and clinical investigator Dr. Nowell Fine is taking on the Libin Cardiovascular Institute’s newly created role of clinical director. He is an assistant clinical professor and the director of Calgary’s Echocardiography Laboratory and the Core Echocardiography Laboratory at the CSM.

Fine is also a busy cardiologist who specializes in heart failure and echocardiography with a particular interest in infiltrative cardiomyopathies, a group of diseases characterized by abnormal substances, such as proteins, being deposited in the heart tissues. He is also interested in developing innovative ways to use echocardiography and other forms of cardiac imaging to guide clinical decision making. Fine has published more than 60 journal articles. He is involved in national and international medical societies focusing on heart failure and cardiac imaging.

Fine views his new role as an opportunity to promote the world-class health care and academic programs provided by members of the Libin Institute. He also hopes to foster mentorship opportunities and collaborations within the institute to enhance research.

Clinical Director

Dr. Nowell Fine, MD

LIBIN LIFE

3

Education Director

Dr. Jennifer Thompson, PhD Assistant professor Dr. Jennifer Thompson is the Libin Cardiovascular Institute’s new education director.

Her research interests lie in studying the long-term effects on the vascular system of individuals subjected to suboptimal or adverse conditions in the womb. Her goal is to one day identify biomarkers to predict the increased risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes in individuals whose womb environment was altered, which will provide patients and their doctors with important information for their health. Thompson’s ongoing work has uncovered a novel role for fat tissue stems in the programming of cardiovascular disease risk factors in offspring exposed to maternal diabetes while they are in the womb.

Passionate about mentorship and providing a well-rounded education to trainees, Thompson hopes to increase student engagement within the Institute. She is excited to see Libin trainees take on leadership roles and build networks with their peers.

Research Director

Dr. Robert Rose, PhD Professor Dr. Robert Rose is the Libin Institute’s new research director.

Rose’s basic and translational research focuses on the study of cardiac arrhythmia, with a particular interest on dysfunction and disease of the sinus node, the heart’s natural pacemaker. He is also interested in arrhythmias in the atria of the heart, such as atrial fibrillation, a common condition in patients with high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease. His work in this area is focused on understanding the role of natriuretic peptides, a family of naturally occurring hormones that have protective functions in cardiac tissue, and examining how they can be synthetically engineered to treat heart arrhythmias and heart disease.

In his new role, Rose hopes to better understand the needs of Libin researchers to enable their success and productivity to continue to increase. He would like to see the Institute recognized as a world class centre for cardiovascular research.

Operations Director

Dr. Lisa Petermann, PhD A certified facilitator and change management professional, Dr. Lisa Petermann is the Libin Institute’s operations director.

She has more than 15 years of experience in the health-care sector, working with organizations such as the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Alberta Health Services.

Her area of focus is strategic planning and community engagement. She earned her PhD in medical history at the University of Warwick in the UK. Petermann has contributed to several journals in the areas of health-care policy and chronic disease prevention, worked on numerous national and international committees and is the current chair of the M.S.I. Foundation board, an Alberta-based health research funding organization. In her role, she is responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the Institute and for ensuring strategic goals are met.