Event Faculty

Dr Almajali completed his UK Cardiology specialist training in Wessex Deanery. He underwent subspeciality training in advanced echocardiography, in both  Southampton university Hospital and Royal Brompton Hospital.  He has special interest in stress echocardiography, 3D  echocardiography, and echocardiographic assessment of valvular heart disease. He is an accredited member of both the British Society of Echocardiography and European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging .He is currently a Consultant Cardiologist at Harefield Hospital.

Dr. Baltabaeva is the Head of the Echocardiography Department at Harefield Hospital and has served as a Consultant Cardiologist in the UK since 2011. After graduating from the Kyrgyz State Medical Academy in 1993, she has built a distinguished career as both a busy clinician and a prolific scientist, authoring 32 published papers.

Her PhD research was recognised with the prestigious 'Young Investigator Award' and 'The President’s Award for Outstanding Research', culminating in a Fellowship at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Dr. Baltabaeva has a proven track record in leading major research initiatives. She has served as the principal cardiologist for a multicentre European research project on cardiomyopathy and secured a significant research grant to study the prognostic implications of mitral regurgitation in acute heart failure (MRAHF).

An experienced educator and mentor, she is adept at teaching complex imaging protocols to diverse groups and has successfully supervised two MD and one MSc students to completion.

Dr Anthony Barron qualified from St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, Imperial College, in 2003. He subsequently trained in North-West London as a cardiology registrar, undertaking a PhD at Imperial College in exercise physiology which he completed in 2013, and became a consultant in 2016 at Harefield Hospital. Dr Barron specializes in heart failure and cardiac imaging. His main areas of expertise in imaging include complex echo and nuclear imaging for ischaemia. He is the clinical lead for the valve clinic and regularly performs diagnostic and interventional TOE and stress echocardiography. He is also the lead for general heart failure at Harefield Hospital.  Alongside his clinical work Dr Barron is a senior clinical lecturer at Brunel Medical School and is heavily involved in postgraduate education, previously having held the post of Royal College Tutor for 6 years.

Dr Max Berrill has finished internal medicine training in Northeast London including Bart’s and the Royal London hospitals, but he previously worked as an echo fellow for Dr. Baltabaeva at Harefield and St Peter’s Hospitals. His previous background was in biology with a master’s in molecular neuroscience. His current research focuses on the role of MR in acute heart failure as well as other echo-derived prognostic factors in decompensated heart failure, with >900 citations and frequent presentations at ESC and EuroEcho. With the research group at Harefield, he has just completed the first systematic review of the role of MR in acute heart failure. His clinical area of interest is acute cardiovascular care and pulmonary embolism - particularly the role of echocardiography, VExUS and thoracic ultrasound in this cohort of patients.

Dr. Pushan Bharadwaj is a Consultant in Nuclear Medicine at the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals, part of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, UK. He has over 30 years of experience in Nuclear Medicine in a career spanning in India, the UK and Singapore, with special interest and expertise in nuclear cardiology involving SPECT and PET. A Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh), an MSc in Cardiology from the University of Sussex, he is board certified by the Certification Board in Nuclear Cardiology (USA), the European Board of Nuclear Medicine and the Internation Society of Clinical Densitometry (USA). He has authored several textbook chapters and peer-reviewed journal publications in Nuclear Medicine and delivered more than 20 lectures as invited international faculty in Europe and Asia.

Bart Bijnens is ICREA Research Professor in Barcelona, at the UPF, and Scientific Director of the Translational Computing in Cardiology group, part of BCN MedTech. He is recognised as an international expert in pathophysiological concepts and (image- and model-based) assessment of cardiovascular diseases, with a reputation of being able to explain basic pathophysiology principles and put technical developments in context. This resulted in many international collaborations, publications and lectures (>200) that are highly interdisciplinary, combining clinical cardiology, cardiac mechanics, imaging, computational modelling and data science. His interests are mainly in Translational Cardiovascular Pathophysiology, focussing on assessing cardiac function and understanding changes induced by disease and how treatment can modulate this remodelling. This is approached by integrating information handling and computing, combined with basic pathophysiology knowledge in order to advance clinical sciences. This implies an approach from basic understanding of disease towards a clinical study; selecting/designing appropriate investigational tools to assess relevant clinical parameters; quantifying diagnostic information (from clinical information to imaging data) to extract pertinent information and interpreting results and relate them to pathophysiology. Nowadays, the incorporation of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in the process of understanding pathophysiological concepts, as well as in translating these into clinically meaningful tools, has provided new opportunities to integrate knowledge and support clinicians in their decision making process. His groups predominantly focuses on developing and validating AI tools in such a way that they fit seamlessly in clinical practice and are interpretable by highlighting and incorporating explicit pathophysiological knowledge.

Karthika Bindhu is a BSE, EACVI, and ARDMS-accredited cardiac physiologist, currently working as Chief Cardiac Physiologist at Harefield Hospital, London. She completed her BSc in Cardiovascular Technology from Manipal University, India. Karthika is currently training in stress echocardiography and is actively involved in the education and hands-on echo training of ETP students and cardiology registrars. She also manages the Harefield echo department’s social media pages, helping promote digital learning and free open-access medical education in echocardiography.

Dr Bucciarelli-Ducci is a consultant cardiologist and imaging specialist at the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals, Guys’ and St Thomas NHS Trust in London, United Kingdom. She is also an honorary Reader (Associate Professor) at the School of Biomedical Engineer and Imaging Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences at King’s College London. From 2010 to 2021 she developed and led with colleagues the CMR Unit of the Bristol Heart Institute at the University Hospitals Bristol NHS Trust and a senior lecturer in cardiology and cardiac imaging at the University of Bristol. In 2012 she was awarded a PhD in CMR at the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London. She has collected over 10 international awards, the latest being Imperial College Alumni Emerging leaders award in 2022.

Since 2019 she is also the Chief Executive Officer of the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) with headquarters in the United States. She is currently completing an MSc in Health Economics at the London School of Economics.

She is the past European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI) Vice-President and chair of the cardiac MRI section (2016-2018), within the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and past Secretary of the EACVI (2018-2019). Since September 2020, she is the Deputy Editor (Imaging) of the European Heart Journal. She is in the editorial board of JACC Cardiovascular Imaging, Circulation Cardiovascular Imaging and European Heart Journal Cardiovascular Imaging. She is an enthusiast advocate on the use of cardiovascular imaging to improve patients’ diagnostics, management and thus prognosis.

Dr Cantor is a Consultant Cardiologist at East Kent Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust, specialising in multi-modality imaging (advanced echocardiography and cardiac MRI).  Her specific interests are in structural heart disease and stress echocardiography, having completed her sub-specialist training and PhD at the Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospital.

Ruth is currently the ECHO Service Lead at Harefield Hospital . She has over 20 years’ experience in ECHO and is responsible for the well being and management of 15 ECHO staff. She is also responsible for the running of the ECHO Department and ensures the delivery of an efficient and effective Echocardiography Service at Harefield. Ruth is also responsible for the training and continuing professional Development and overall performance of the ECHO staff. The ECHO Department holds EAVCI Accreditation in Advanced Transthoracic Echocardiography and Advanced Transoesophageal Echo cardiography and Advanced Stress Echocardiography and we have one Physiologist who holds an accreditation in Congenital Heart Disease.

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Dr Camelia Demetrescu is a Consultant Clinical Scientist in Cardiology and Joint Clinical Lead for Diagnostics and Outpatients at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. With over 30 years of NHS experience, she specialises in advanced echocardiography techniques, with a particular focus on stress echocardiography, valve disease, TOE in interventional cardiology, inherited cardiomyopathies, and heart failure.

She has extensive experience in clinical education, having supervised Erasmus students, led BSE and EACVI accreditation programmes, and lectured on MSc courses. Dr Demetrescu also brings a strong background in leadership, service development, and research, with active involvement in study design, data analysis, and publication.

She is a member of the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging, British Society of Echocardiography, British Heart Valve Society, Academy of Healthcare Science, and the National School of Healthcare Science.

Dr Alison Duncan (MBBS BSc PhD FRCP FESC) is Associate Specialist inCardiology and Transcatheter Valve Therapies at The Royal Brompton Hospital. Shehas more than 27 years’ experience in clinical transthoracic, transoesophageal, stress,and 3D echocardiography and has held full BSE and European Accreditation in bothTTE and TOE since 2014. She achieved her First Class PhD from Imperial CollegeLondon in 2004 on “Physiological Stress Echo and Heart Failure”, was awardedFellowship to the Royal College of Medicine London in 2019, was appointedHonorary Senior Lecturer at Kings College London in 2021, is Secretary of theBritish Heart Valve Society, and was appointed Fellow of the European Society ofCardiology in 2024.Dr. Duncan is Faculty member of London PCR Valve Therapies, PCR ImagingValves (Madrid), CSI Frankfurt, Heart Valve Society, BISMICS, EACTS, ISMICS,the British Cardiovascular Society, Transcatheter Mitral Valve Interventions (UK andIreland), and is a member of the European PCR Tricuspid Focus Group. She has beenan invited lecturer at over 100 national and international meetings, has published over100 original articles in peer-reviewed journals, and has a Research Interest Score of1492, Citations 3130, and a H Index of 32.

Majs is the deputy Echo lead at Harefield Hospital and the lead physiologist for complex stress echo and hospital education. An active faculty member of Harefield’s advanced mechanical circulatory support training programme conducting echo lectures for ECMO and various complex LVAD & RVAD contraptions. Being a mentor, he pilots the Echo Training Programme (ETP) in Harefield under the National School of Healthcare Science and has experience in artificial intelligence designed for echocardiography. He earned multiple international accreditations in transthoracic and stress echocardiography and is also an ALS certified individual.

Dr Stam Kapetanakis is a consultant cardiologist in Heart Failure at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust since 2010.
He is clinical lead for Echocardiography and Cardio-Oncology. He completed his undergraduate education at the Karolinska Institute, Faculty of Medicine, Stockholm, Sweden in 1993, and has been working in the UK National Health Service since 1994. He undertook research in 3D Echocardiography in 2001 and has been actively involved in research and education of 3D ECHO since. His main interests are Echocardiography, Heart Failure and Cardio-Oncology, having established this service at Guy’s hospital in 2013. He also maintains an interest in Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy, having introduced a dedicated service in 2011. He is Clinical Lead for Echocardiography at Guy’s and St’ Thomas’ hospitals and runs regular 3D Echo, TEE and Stress Echocardiography sessions.

Dr. Bengisu Keskin Meric received her medical degree with High Honors from the University of Ege, Izmir, Turkey, in 2015, and completed her Cardiology Specialty training at the Institute of Cardiology Cerrahpasa University in Istanbul in 2020. Following her specialty training, Dr. Bengisu served as a Cardiology Specialist in Turkey before joining the UK for further postgraduate experience. She worked as a Senior Clinical Fellow in Cardiology at Ashford & St Peter’s Hospital, London, and is currently a Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Adult Echocardiography at Harefield Hospital. In this role, they are instrumental in advancing the Stress Echo service, initiating clinical cardiac research projects, and translating findings into improved patient care.

Dr. Bengisu holds certifications in Adult Transthoracic Echocardiography and Adult Transesophageal Echocardiography, underscoring their subspecialty expertise in advanced echocardiography. Their areas of expertise include cardiac imaging, valvular heart disease, structural and perioperative transoesophageal echocardiography, and stress echocardiography. She serves as an editor for publications including Advanced Cardiovascular Solutions and the Turkish Society of Cardiology. She has presented at international conferences such as EuroEcho and ESC.

Dr Khattar underwent his specialist training in London. He has extensive experience in advanced echocardiography and specialises in stress and contrast echocardiography, trans-oesophageal echocardiography and 3-D echocardiography. He joined Royal Brompton Hospital from Manchester Heart Centre where he led non-invasive cardiology. He is a honorary clinical senior lecturer at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London.

Professor Wei Li is a Consultant and Clinical Lead in Adult Congenital Heart Disease Echocardiography at Royal Brompton Hospital and National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London.  

She has worked in this field for more than 20 years and has promoted ACHD echocardiography through her work at Imperial/RBH and through her external engagements. She has established the world-class Echocardiography services for Adult Congenital Heart Disease patients.  

She has been responsible for training many Visiting Fellows in ACHD Echocardiography who have subsequently become ACHD Programme Directors in their own hospitals. She is a frequently invited speaker at international conferences and is a member of the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI) Accreditation Committee.

Her research focuses on integrated cardiac physiology in patients with ACHD/structural heart disease and pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH). Her clinical research projects have not only helped produce many publications in high impact factor journals but also contributed to guidelines and to significant improvement in patient care locally and internationally. She has written a text book and published more than 200 peer reviewed scientific papers.

Dr Mittal is a consultant Cardiothoracic Radiologist at Harefield Hospital with extensive experience in cardiac CT and cardiac MRI. His clinical and research expertise includes imaging in coronary artery disease, heart failure and transplantation, and valvular heart disease. Dr Mittal is well known internationally for cardiac CT training courses.  

Dr. Alexandros Papachristidis qualified form Athens Medical School in Greece and completed a fellowship in advanced echocardiography along with a PhD course in cardiac imaging at King’s College London, University of London. He was appointed as a Consultant Cardiologist at King’s College Hospital in 2018 and he has a leading role in the echocardiography department.

He has a special interest in echocardiography, cardiovascular CT and valvular heart disease including surgical and structural interventions.

He is accredited by the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI) in both transthoracic (TTE) and transoesophageal (TOE) echocardiography and by the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT) in cardiovascular computed tomography.

He has significant experience in advanced echocardiography including 3D echocardiography, stress echocardiography, and strain analysis along with peri-operative TOE in cardiac surgery, electrophysiology and transcatheter structural interventions.

He is also experienced in both CT coronary angiography and CT for structural interventions such as transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), transcatheter mitral and tricuspid valve interventions, left atrial appendage occlusion, ventricular septal defect closure and paravalvular leak closure.

He has clinical expertise in general cardiac conditions, coronary artery disease and valvular heart disease and he is leading the valve surveillance clinic at King’s.

His research interest includes stress echocardiography, 3D echocardiography, valvular heart disease, artificial intelligence, and development of automated algorithms for 3D imaging processing and analysis. He is the Primary Investigator of several multi-centre trials. He is the author of more than 60 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals. He is an Associate Editor in the British Society of Echocardiography’s journal, Echo Research and Practice, a member of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP), the British Society of Echocardiography (BSE), the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE), the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT), an EACVI Silver Member, a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology (FESC), and a member of the British Heart Valve Society (BHVS).

He has extensive experience in training and teaching including undergraduate students, cardiology trainees, fellows, and sonographers. In addition, he has been an invited faculty in numerous courses and congresses in the field of echocardiography and CT, and he is the director of a 4-day course in Advanced Echocardiography: 3D and strain imaging.

Dr Shelley Rahman-Haley is a consultant cardiologist with interests in cardiac oncology, cardiorespiratory transplantation and mechanical circulatory support. After training at Papworth, Royal Brompton and St Thomas’s Hospitals, she was appointed in 2007 to lead the echo department at Harefield hospital, she moved from this role in 2021 to take up a new role as Clinical Information Officer for the Heart, Lung and Critical Care clinical group.  In addition to clinical interests, Dr Rahman-Haley now focusses on the transformation of care delivery and the role digital technology can play in improving patient and staff experience, ensuring equity of access to excellent standards of care and reducing clinical risk

Dr. Prina Rajani is a Specialist Trainee in Cardiology (ST6) in the North West London Deanery, with a particular interest in Cardiac Imaging, including advanced echocardiography and CMR. She has been awarded the prestigious British Heart Foundation Clinical Research Training Fellowship (BHF CRTF) and has started working on her PhD with Dr. Tayal, Professors Ware and Prasad, focusing on the impact of reproductive risk factors on dilated and arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy phenotypes and outcomes

Dr Ramyah Rajakulasingam MBBS BSc MRCP PhD is a Consultant Cardiologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at Imperial College London. Her specialist interests are multimodality cardiac imaging (advanced echocardiography and CMR) and structural heart disease, for which she has received extensive training at Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals. Her PhD was awarded in 2024 from the NHLI at Imperial College, as part of a prestigious BHF Clinical Research Training Fellowship. Her research used novel imaging techniques to assess the relationship between acute changes in cardiac microstructure and adverse left ventricular remodelling in patients with STEMI.

Professor Senior studied at the University of Calcutta, India, obtaining a masters degree in medicine and cardiology. He joined Northwick Park Hospital, London in 1989. In 1995, he was appointed as a consultant cardiologist, then director of cardiac research in 2003. In September 2010, he was appointed as a consultant cardiologist and director of echocardiography at Royal Brompton Hospital. In 2010 he was awarded Professorship of Clinical Cardiology at National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College, London. He is a clinician with a major interest in echocardiography and stress echocardiography and pioneered the clinical development of myocardial contrast echocardiography. He has published over 450 original papers in the field of cardiology and is co-author of the 2024 EACVI consensus paper on clinical use of stress echocardiography.

Dr Benoy Shah is a consultant cardiologist in University Hospital Southampton. His areas of subspecialty interest are echocardiography and heart valve diseases. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London, a Fellow of the European society of Cardiology and the Immediate Past President of the British Heart Valve Society. He is a member of the British Society of Echocardiography’s Stress Echocardiography Accreditation Committee.

Professor Dr. George Sutherland is a renown pioneer in the field of echocardiography. He has had a distinguished career as a clinical and academic cardiologist in both paediatric and adult cardiology. He has made a big impact in getting echocardiography to the forefront of research. As a Chairman of the Working Group on Echocardiography of the European Society of Cardiology in 2000-2002 he promoted collaboration between engineers and clinicians to bring forward successful innovations and important developments enabling tissue Doppler imaging coming into daily clinical practice. He developed basics of trans-oesophageal echocardiography, established the concept of post-systolic thickening and LBBB-driven dyssynchrony. His influence extends to major medical societies and leading medical journals. He worked as the Deputy Editor of the European Heart Journal and is a member of the editorial boards for numerous other top-tier publishing houses, including the Journal of the American Society of Echo and Cardiovascular Research. As a prolific author, he has published more than 280 papers, five books, and 63 book chapters, with more publications currently in preparation. He remains active in his retirement maintaining his fingers on pulse and continuing educating new generation of cardiologists.

Dr Konstantinos Vakalis is a Consultant Cardiologist working in the NHS (Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust) as well as in the private sector.

He trained in cardiology in both Greece and the UK and has over 20 years of clinical experience, with specialist interests in cardiovascular imaging and heart failure.

Dr Vakalis has extensive expertise in stress echocardiography and has contributed to the development of innovative protocols in the field.

He is the Heart Failure Lead at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where he also coordinates the local heart failure and echocardiography multidisciplinary teams.

He is actively involved in research, regularly publishes scientific articles, and contributes to national and international cardiology congresses.

Dr Vakalis holds the honorary titles of Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology (FESC) and the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (FEACVI).

Dr Anastasia Vamvakidou studied at the Democritus University of Thrace in Greece. She joined the UK for her postgraduate training and completed her Cardiology Specialty training in the London Northwest Deanery in 2022, subspecialising in advanced echocardiography. In 2018 she completed a Master’s Degree in Cardiology and Management in Brighton University. Her PhD at Imperial College London focused on the value of stress echocardiography for the assessment of aortic stenosis. She has published 26  original papers in peer-reviewed journals in the field of valvular heart disease and stress echocardiography. She currently works as a Consultant Cardiologist at Imperial College in London. Her areas of expertise include valvular heart disease, structural and perioperative transoesophageal echocardiography, stress echocardiography for valvular heart disease, myocardial contrast echocardiography, and endocarditis.