Research Fellows

Steffen Blum

Research Fellow

Steffen Blum is a clinical and research fellow at PHRI and McMaster University, supervised by PHRI scientist David Conen. He completed medical school at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. Steffen is a Swiss board-certified internist and has been a resident in cardiology at the University Hospital Basel, Switzerland, where he also completed his PhD in Clinical Research.

Steffen joined PHRI to build up a cohort of patients with myocardial injury of non-cardiac surgery (MINS), who are undergoing cardiac imaging with positron emission tomography for further risk stratification. Additionally, he is involved in the ASPIRE-AF and COP-AF trials and undergoes advanced training in nuclear cardiac imaging at the McMaster affiliated hospitals.

Filipe Cirne

Research Fellow

Filipe Cirne completed his medical degree at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande in Brazil (2012). His internal medicine and cardiology residency trainings were completed at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, also in Brazil. Additionally he completed an echocardiography fellowship at Instituto de Cardiologia do Rio Grande do Sul, where he is currently completing a MSc.

His main research interests include cardio-oncology and structural heart disease. He is finishing an advanced echocardiography fellowship at McMaster University. Filipe is working on cardio-oncology research projects under the mentorship of Darryl Leong, including on the studies RADICAL-PC and SCHOLAR-2, and doing systematic reviews on prostate cancer risk factors and survivorship/CV outcomes.

Maram Khaled

Research Fellow

Maram Khaled is a Research Fellow at PHRI, supervised by Maura Marcucci, and a PhD student in the Health Research Methodology Program at McMaster University. Her current research interests focus on perioperative pain, pain management strategies and neurocognitive outcomes after non-cardiac surgery in older adults.

Maram is a pain physician, she obtained her medical degree (MBBCh) from Alexandria University, Egypt and her MSc degree in Pharmacology from the University of Toronto where she studied the neurocircuitry of relapse to addiction. She completed her training in Pain Medicine at the Medical Research Institute, Alexandria University, Egypt (2012-2018) where she was involved in clinical research related to acute and chronic pain.

Mohamed Jalloh

Research Fellow

Mohamed Bella Jalloh is a research fellow at PHRI under the supervision of PHRI Scientist Harriette Van Spall. His main focus will include clinical trial methodology and implementation science. He will be involved in a multi-centre randomized controlled trial in heart failure.

Mohamed earned his medical degree from the University of Sierra Leone and a Master of Science from the University of Oxford. Previously, he was a global health scholar at Oxford, where he supported AMR and pandemic preparedness-focused global health initiatives.

Harry Klimis

Research Fellow

Harry Klimis is a Clinical and Research Fellow at PHRI and McMaster University, supervised by Darryl Leong and Salim Yusuf. His training features an integrated cardio-oncology research and clinical program dedicated to understanding the evolution of cardiovascular risk factor patterns in healthy populations and people with cancer, and their association with CVD and mortality. Harry is an investigator in the RADICAL-PC and SCHOLAR-2 studies, and will be working on the PURE study.

Harry is an Australian cardiologist and completed both his MBBS and PhD at the University of Sydney. His research has primarily focused on primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and digital health interventions. Other research interests include cardio-oncology and echocardiography.

Ryo Naito

Research Fellow

After working as a cardiologist for more than 10 years in Japan, Ryo Naito became a PHRI Research Fellow in 2018, joining the PURE study team. His research interests include preventive cardiology, heart failure, and ischemic heart disease.

Saba Naqvi

Research Fellow

Under the supervision of Sonia Anand of the global and population health research team at PHRI, Saba Naqvi is working on the adiposity trajectory of children as part of her post-doctoral fellowship. Saba pursued her Ph.D. in nutrition from St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore, India where she worked on measurement of body composition in Indian pregnant women and their neonates using a technique which measures natural radioactivity of the body. Her main research interest focuses on maternal and child health and early onset of chronic diseases.

Carley Ouellette

Research Fellow

Carley Ouellette is a PhD student at McMaster University, School of Nursing studying under the supervision of Dr. Michael McGillion (committee: Drs. Maura Marcucci; Sandra Carroll) and is a registered nurse working clinically in the Emergency Department, Juravinski Hospital, Hamilton Health Sciences.

Carley’s research focus is on digital health innovations, wearable technologies, and virtual care with remote patient monitoring. Carley is currently leading with Drs McGillion and Marcucci, the VERDICT-2 study partnering with Cloud DX to complete a verification and user-testing study using the Vitaliti continuous vital signs monitor. This study will include a sample of patients who have undergone surgery, their caregivers, nurses, and physicians.

Carley is also the Nursing Project Officer for the PVC-RAM 1,3, and SMArTVIEW studies.

Lonnie Pyne

Research Fellow

Lonnie Pyne is a Research Fellow at PHRI, supervised by Dr. Michael Walsh, and a MSc student in the Health Research Methodology program at McMaster. Lonnie is a Clinical Scholar in the Department of Medicine, Division of Nephrology at McMaster University. Lonnie obtained his medical degree from Western University. He completed his internal medicine residency and nephrology fellowship at McMaster University.

His current research interests include chronic kidney disease, surrogate outcomes in nephrology, cardiovascular outcomes in kidney disease, and vasculitis.

Reema Shah

Research Fellow

Reema Shah completed her MD and internal medicine residency at the University of Toronto, and her endocrinology and metabolism residency at McMaster University. After residency, she completed the Clinician Investigator Program at McMaster University and Master of Public Health degree at Harvard University. Reema is interested in clinical research in the area of diabetes and its complications. She is being supervised by Dr. Hertzel Gerstein.

Tina Stegmann

Research Fellow

Tina Stegmann is a Research Fellow at PHRI supervised by PHRI scientist David Conen. Her main research activities at PHRI will focus on the prevalence and distribution pattern of vascular brain lesions and correlating cognitive function in patients with atrial fibrillation compared to patients with high cardiovascular disease burden. A comparative analysis of large clinical trials in collaboration with the study team of the COMPASS-MIND trial is planned. Tina will also be involved in international perioperative clinical trials coordinated from the PHRI (COP-AF and ASPIRE-AF).

Tina obtained her medical degree from the University of Leipzig, Germany in 2017 and is a cardiology resident at the University Hospital Leipzig, Department of Cardiology since 2018.

Her previous work focused on the relationship between heart failure and the comorbidity atrial fibrillation, such as telemedical non-invasive interventions in patients with chronic heart failure compared to usual care. Tina mainly contributed to the Investigator-initiated German study addressing the mechanisms of Sacubitril-Valsartan on heart failure hemodynamics by using noninvasive pressure-volume analysis. Tina is involved in multicenter clinical trials as an investigator.

Ana Claudia Tonelli

Research Fellow

Ana Claudia Tonelli is a Research Fellow at PHRI under the supervision of PHRI Scientist Flavia Kessler Borges. Ana will be involved in an international multi-centre randomized controlled clinical trial in perioperative care. Ana is an internal medicine physician at Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Brazil, and an Associate Professor at Unisinos University.

She has a Master’s Degree in internal medicine and a Ph.D. in cardiology and cardiovascular sciences, conferred by Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil. The primary research related to this academic formation is related to hypertension. In 2012, she started her ultrasound point of care career as a fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital. Since then, she has been a standard bearer for Point-of-Care Ultrasound in Brazil, teaching medical students, residents, and practicing internists.

Patrick Wanner

Research Fellow

Patrick Wanner is a Research Fellow at PHRI and an MSc student in the Health Research Methodology Program at McMaster University, supervised by PJ Devereaux. His research focuses on optimizing perioperative and post-discharge hemodynamics to prevent postoperative complications.

Patrick is a Swiss anesthesiologist and intensivist. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Zurich and completed his training at the Cantonal Hospitals of St. Gallen & Baden and at the University Hospital of Basel in Switzerland.