Dr. Jenkins is a pediatric cardiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Her most important scientific contributions relate to understanding and improving variation in quality of healthcare using data analytics applied at the local, national and international level. She has led multiple national and international networks related to pediatric quality, including the American College of Cardiology NCDR IMPACT Registry and QNET national project, International Consortium for Health Outcome Measurement Overall Pediatric Health and Congenital Heart Disease Standard Sets, and the International Quality Improvement Collaborative for Congenital Heart Disease in low and middle-income countries. She served for over a decade as Chief Safety and Quality Officer for Boston Children’s Hospital, and in her current role, she is leading efforts to use applied AI with data generated directly from the clinical environment and electronic medical record to implement real-time interventions and iterative solutions towards a learning healthcare system. She serves on the International Advisory Board for Children’s HeartLink.
Disty Pearson, Vice-President
Disty Pearson is the parent of a congenital heart disease patient and a physician assistant in adult congenital heart disease (CHD), recently retired. She has worked with CHD patients over the past 40 years, first in cardiac surgery and for the last 20 years with the Boston Adult Congenital Heart Service (BACH) at the Boston Children’s Hospital and the Mass General Brigham. She is a founding member of the ACHA Medical Advisory Board and is a member of the American College of Cardiology. Disty recognized early on the importance of the patient and family voice in all decisions affecting the care of patients and is dedicated to improving the lives of those affected by childhood onset heart disease throughout the world.
Dr. Colman is a Professor of Medicine and of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Toronto and Cardiologist and past Clinical Director of the Toronto ACHD Program, Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, University Health Network. He is a past president of the International Society for Adult Congenital Heart Disease, and past Medical Advisory Board member of the Canadian Marfan Association (now GADA), Canadian Congenital Heart Alliance, and the Adult Congenital Heart Association.
Dr. Mattos is currently the Medical Director of the Maternal-Fetal Cardiac Unit of the Royal Portuguese Hospital, President of The Heart Circle (CirCor), Director of Caduceus, and a researcher with the Keiso Asami Immunopathology Laboratory (LIKA) – UFPE. She received her medical degree from the Federal University of Pernambuco in Brazil, specialty cardiology training at the Royal Royal Brompton and Great Ormond Street Hospitals in the UK, and a PhD in biotechnology from the Federal University of Pernambuco. She is actively involved with the tele-auscultation – Multicope project at the University of Porto, Portugal, Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (ODDS) project at the Federal University of Pernambuco, and the Pediatric Cardiology Network, The Heart Circle, in Brazil.
Dr. Hamman is the past Head of Paediatric and Congenital Cardiology in the Ministry of Health of Namibia. He was Principal Investigator for Namibia in the REMEDY and RHD GEN studies on Rheumatic Heart Disease. He is on the Steering Committee for the World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery and was Chair of the 6thWorld Congress in Cape Town in 2013. He has served on the International Advisory Board of Children’s HeartLink and is Executive Chairman of the Hugo-Hamman Foundation. A Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, he was previously South Africa’s Health Attaché at the European Union in Brussels and was the Director of Ministerial Services for the South African Department of Health. He is Honorary Associate Professor in the Department of Paediatrics in the University of Cape Town and in clinical practice at the Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital in Cape Town.
Dr. Hasan is a pediatric cardiologist trained at Boston Children’s Hospital, and currently is Professor and Chair, Division of Cardio-thoracic Sciences at the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, SIUT in Karachi, Pakistan. His areas of interest are quality outcomes in Low-and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC )of congenital heart disease patients and use of precision analytics in LMIC.
Dr. Krishna Kumar is presently a clinical professor and head of the Department of Pediatric cardiology at the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Center, Amrita University, Cochin, India. He is a member of the steering committee of the International Quality Improvement collaborative on congenital heart disease and has served as a member of the Rheumatic Fever, Endocarditis and Kawasaki Disease Committee (RFEKD) of the Council on Cardiovascular Disease in the Young of the American Heart Association (2017-2019). He also serves as an expert of the World Heart Federation Council on Neglected Diseases.
Dr. Oster is a pediatric cardiologist at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. He holds Emory appointments of Professor of Pediatrics in the School of Medicine and Professor of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health. Furthermore, he serves as a medical officer at the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. He earned his MD at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and his MPH in epidemiology at Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. After completing residency training in pediatrics at the University of California-San Francisco, he underwent fellowship training in pediatric cardiology at Emory University. When not seeing patients, he serves as director of the Children’s Program to Evaluate and Advance Cardiovascular Health (PEACH). His research interests include newborn screening for congenital heart disease, long-term outcomes for patients with congenital heart disease, and the cardiac effects of COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines.
Dr. Palacios-Macedo is Chief of Congenital Heart Surgery at the Instituto Nacional de Pediatría (INP) and Medical Coordinator of the ABC Medical Center/Kardias Congenital Heart Surgery Program in Mexico City. He is co-founder of the Kardias Foundation and serves as medical director. He obtained his medical degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and residency in Internal Medicine and General Surgery at the National Institute of Medical Sciences, in Mexico City.
Dr. Shidhika is a Consultant Paediatric Cardiologist and Head of Department, Ministry of Health and Social Services, in Windhoek, Namibia. She received her medical degree from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, followed by a Pediatric Fellowship and Cardiology Fellowship from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She also received a Master of Philosophy (MPhil.) in Pediatric Cardiology and is completing an Executive MSc. in Health Economics, Outcomes and Management in Cardiovascular Sciences, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. Dr. Shidhika is a Founder and Trustee of the Namibia National Children Hearts Trust, an active academic writer, reviewer, and presenter, and is a member of numerous medical and non-profit associations and organizations.
Dr. Sivakumar is a Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgeon at the National Heart Institute in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Dr. Vervoort is a PhD Candidate and Vanier Scholar at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation and the Division of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Toronto. He is Founding President of the Global Cardiac Surgery Initiative, a World Heart Federation Emerging Leader, and Advisor to the Global Surgery Foundation. His research foci include global access to cardiac surgical care, health economics, decision analysis, and cardiac surgical clinical trials. Dominique has published over 200 peer-reviewed publications and serves on the Editorial Board for multiple leading cardiac surgery and cardiology journals.
Dr. Zühlke is the Vice-President of the South African Medical Council, a pediatric cardiologist in the Dept. of Pediatric Cardiology at RXH and worked as the clinical co-coordinator of the ASAP programme, managing several large-scale RHD projects in South Africa and on the African continent- while completing her MPH and PHD in RHD studies. She directs the Children’s Heart Disease Research Unit, is a collaborator with the Institute of Health Metrics, and is co-author on several Global Burden of Disease publications. She is involved in research projects spanning CHD and RHD, HIV in adolescents, and cardiac disease in women of childbearing age. She has leveraged funding for several major research projects in Africa, with new collaborations internationally. Most recently, she was awarded the prestigious MRC/Dfid African Research Leadership Award, The FAHA Duckett Jones Lecturer and Young Heart Award, the UCT Vice-Chancellor Award for socially responsible research and has over 160 publications and 10 book chapters.
Nahimeh Jaffar has worked as a certified Project Manager (PMP) in various fields, including Public Health, Biotech, and Pharmaceuticals, working within clinical settings such as hospitals and clinics. In addition, she worked with global communities in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East, supporting various social impact projects. Ms. Jaffar has been involved in preventive health initiatives in collaboration with the Center for Disease Control (CDC, USA) and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS, USA).
Ms. Jaffar holds an MBA in Business Development from the Swiss Institute of Higher Management, Vevey, Switzerland, and a bachelor’s degree in Consumer Affairs from California State University, Northridge, USA.
Amy Verstappen has been a patient advocate and health educator since 1996, when her own challenges living with a complex heart defect led her to the Adult Congenital Heart Association, where she served as president from 2001 to 2013. She has served as an advisor to the Centers for Disease Control the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; and the International Society for Adult Congenital Cardiac Disease, and worked with congenital heart patient and professional groups throughout the USA and the world. Ms. Verstappen received a Masters in Education in 1990 and a Masters in Global Health in 2019.
