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Rising Stars in Cardiology Conference 2026

May 30th, 2026 
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Conference Objectives
The 2026 Rising Stars in Cardiology  Conference will serve a foundational role in helping early-in-practice cardiologists gain meaningful insight into patient and disease management. This event is geared towards the early-in-practice clinician and will include didactic lectures, complex case discussions, and panel Q&A sessions.

Only 50 spots, including limited travel grants, are available for this one-of-a-kind conference and we encourage you to register early.

If you are able to join us, kindly RSVP by registering to the conference using the link below. Registrations will close on January 15th, 2026, or when the conference reaches capacity. As space is limited, we encourage you to RSVP at your earliest convenience if you plan to attend.

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Scientific Steering Committee
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Dr. Beth Abramson
Biography
Headshot_Bainey

Dr. Kevin Bainey

Biography
Headshot_Gravel_SQ

Dr. Guillaume Marquis-Gravel

Biography
Faculty & Moderators
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Dr. Natasha Aleksova

Biography
2023-09_Dr-Jason-Andrade_18-SQ

Dr. Jason Andrade

Biography
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Dr. Akshay Bagai

Biography
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Dr. Laurie-Anne Boivin-Proulx

Biography
Alice Cheng Nov 2025-SQ

Dr. Alice Cheng

Biography
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Dr. Corrado De Marco

Biography
Headshot_Haddad_NB

Dr. Kevin Haddad

Biography
Headshot_Abdullah copy_NB

Dr. Abdullah Malik

Biography
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Dr. Samer Mansour

Biography
Headshot_Blandine-Mondesert_NB

Dr. Blandine Mondésert

Biography
Headshot_Omeara_NB

Dr. Eileen O’Meara

Biography
Headshot_Traynor_NB

Dr. Bryan Traynor

Biography

Agenda

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Dr. Beth Abramson MD is the Paul Albrechtsen Professor in Cardiac Prevention and Women’s Health in the Division of Cardiology at St. Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto. She is also an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto.

She enjoys educating the public on heart health and is a national spokesperson for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Her book, Heart Health for Canadians, published in 2013, aims to help people prevent and understand heart disease. In 2015, she was awarded the prestigious Harold N. Segal award of Merit, in recognition of her many contributions to preventing heart disease amongst Canadians. She is a member of the American Society of Preventive Cardiology Women’s working group, and has co-chaired the American College of Cardiology’s Hypertension working group. In 2021, she was invited to become a member of the American College of Cardiology Prevention Council.

In addition, Dr. Abramson is a founding member and inaugural Chair (2018-2020) of the Canadian Women’s Heart Health Alliance Education Working Group, which has created an electronic course and toolkit on Women and Heart Disease for MDs. Dr. Abramson’s has also been involved in the North American Menopause Societys’ (NAMS) awareness efforts.

She currently directs a fellowship in Preventive Cardiology at the University of Toronto and has recently established an academic Cardiometabolic Clinic at St. Michael’s Hospital to close care gaps. Dr. Abramson also works out of the Toronto Cardiac Clinic.

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Interventional cardiologist Kevin Bainey is a graduate of the University of Alberta’s medical school. After completing his core internal medicine and clinical cardiology residencies in Edmonton (University of Alberta), Dr. Bainey pursued an interventional cardiology fellowship at Harvard University, Boston and subsequently became a clinical scholar in interventional cardiology at McMaster University, Hamilton.   He was the recipient of numerous awards during his undergraduate and residency medical education. Dr. Bainey also completed a Master of Science degree in health research methodology at McMaster. In 2011, he was recruited to the University of Alberta’s Division of Cardiology and works at the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute.

Dr. Bainey is faculty at the VIGOUR Centre in the Katz Group for Pharmacy and Health Research. He leads and collaborates on numerous clinical trials for therapies for heart conditions. Among his research interests are reperfusion Injury in ST-elevation myocardial infarction, ethnic-based clinical outcomes focusing primarily on South Asians with coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction with non-obstructive coronary arteries and heart attacks in women. His research, funded by provincial and national agencies including Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Alberta Health Services Quality Innovation Fund, has been published widely in peer-reviewed journals. These include American Journal of Cardiology, American Heart Journal, International Journal of Cardiology, Circulation, Cardiovascular Interventions, Journal of American College of Cardiology, New England Journal of Medicine, and Canadian Journal of Cardiology.

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Dr. Guillaume Marquis-Gravel is an interventional cardiologist at the Montreal Heart Institute, and an associate professor at Université de Montréal since 2020. He is a Junior 2 clinical research scholar of the Fonds de la Recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS). He completed his medical training (M.D.), a Masters in Biomedical Sciences (M.Sc., with Honors), a residency in internal medicine, and a residency in adult cardiology (with Honors) at the Université de Montréal. He then completed a 1-year clinical fellowship in interventional cardiology at Duke University (Durham, NC, United States), followed by a 2-year clinical research fellowship at the Duke Clinical Research Institute. He is the primary author or co-author of more than 130 peer-reviewed publications, including in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA Cardiology, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and Circulation, and of 5 book chapters. He is an associate editor of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology. His main research interests revolve around the antithrombotic management of acute and chronic coronary artery disease, prevention of contrast-induced nephropathy after PCI, and development of innovative clinical trial methods. He is the principal investigator of research projects funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Heart & Stroke Foundation, and the Canadian Heart Function Alliance. He is the co-chair of the 2023 Canadian Cardiovascular Society/Canadian Association of Interventional Cardiology Focused Update of the Guidelines for the Use of Antiplatelet Therapy.

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Dr. Aleksova obtained her medical degree from the University of Western Ontario and completed her cardiology residency at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. She pursued a fellowship in advanced heart failure and transplantation at Toronto General Hospital and a subsequent echocardiography fellowship at Mount Sinai Hospital. Natasha obtained her MSc in Health Research Methodology from McMaster University and successfully defended her thesis in 2022. Natasha is a heart failure cardiologist at Women’s College Hospital and Toronto General Hospital. Her current clinical and research interests include optimizing post-discharge care for patients hospitalized with heart failure and evaluating outcomes in heart transplant recipients.

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Dr. Andrade is the Director of Electrophysiology at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH). He has served as co-chair of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) Atrial Fibrillation Guidelines from 2017-2025, and the CCS Device Therapy Guidelines (since 2022). He has served on the executive for the Canadian Heart Rhythm Society (CHRS) as chair of the Education Committee (2013-2016) and chair of the Device Advisory Committee (2021-2025). Over the past 12 years Dr. Andrade has held multiple roles with cardiac services BC, the provincial agency responsible for delivering cardiac care in British Columbia, including the inaugural medical chair for Heart Rhythm Disease for the BC Cardiovascular Disease Network.

Dr. Andrade has authored over 340 scientific publications, predominantly in the domain of atrial fibrillation. His publications can be found in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Circulation, the European Heart Journal, Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). As a result of these contributions he has been recognized as a “Highly Ranked Scholar”, placing 5 worldwide for Atrial fibrillation research and for Catheter Ablation research.

Dr. Andrade has received numerous awards including the Canadian Institute of Health Research CIHR-ICRH/CCS Mid-Career Lecturer Award in Cardiovascular Sciences, the VMDAS Scientific Achievement award, the Canadian Heart Rhythm Society George Klein Award, the Clinical Faculty Award for Excellence in Research (UBC), the Donald M Whitelaw Award, the Alumni Achievement Award (Ottawa), the Robert E. Beamish Award, the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Clinical Investigator Scholar Award, the CCS Bayer Award, the Joseph J. Diamond Memorial Prize for Research, the Peter J Armanious Award , and was recognized by the Vancouver Whitecaps as Frontline Hero of the Match.

Dr. Andrade has delivered more than 550 national and international lectures and is the author of several textbooks, book chapters, and medical apps, and has acted as a consultant to regulatory agencies, in medicolegal matters, and to the film and television industry.

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Dr. Akshay Bagai is a practicing interventional cardiologist at St. Michael’s Hospital and an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Bagai received his MD and trained in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at the University of Toronto. He completed his training in Interventional Cardiology at St. Michael’s Hospital. He obtained a Masters degree in Health Sciences from the Clinical Research Training Program at Duke University, USA. He returned to Toronto and joined the Division of Cardiology at St. Michael’s Hospital in August 2013. His clinical and research interests are closely aligned and include complex, high risk, and total occlusion percutaneous coronary intervention, and transcatheter interventions for mitral and tricuspid valve disease.

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Dr. Boivin-Proulx is currently completing an Interventional Cardiology fellowship (PGY9) at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (Canada) and a PHD candidate at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain), with the goal of becoming a clinician-researcher with an interest in coronary physiology, microcirculation and women’s heart health. After her doctorate in medicine at the University of Sherbrooke (2016), she completed her residency in internal medicine (2020) and Cardiology (2023) at the University of Montreal, followed by a fellowship in Interventional Cardiology at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (2023). In addition to her medical training, she also completed a Master of Sciences (MSc) in Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan of Public Health (2021). Throughout her training, she has been involved in clinical research (54 publications; 32 conference presentations; 22 poster presentations) and with numerous national and international organizations. She currently is the national trainee representative and an executive board member of the Canadian Society of Cardiology (CCS), and of the Canadian Women’s Heart Health Alliance (CWHHA).

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Dr. Cheng is an Endocrinologist at Trillium Health Partners and St Michaels’ Hospital and an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto.  She was involved with the development of the Diabetes Canada clinical practice guidelines from 2003 to 2020 and was Chair for the 2013 version.  She served as Chair of the Scientific Planning Committee for the 2023 and 2024 American Diabetes Association annual scientific meetings and sat on the planning committees for European Association for the Study of Diabetes annual meeting (2025, 2026) and the International Diabetes Federation Congress 2025.  In addition, she is a co-host of the podcast series “Diabetes Care On Air” for the journal, Diabetes Care.   In recognition of her contribution to the diabetes community, she has received the Outstanding Physician-Clinician in Diabetes Award from the American Diabetes Association and the Charles H. Best Award and the Gerald S. Wong Service Award from Diabetes Canada.  She is also the creator of The Med Ed Pledge – an initiative to increase Diversity & Inclusion in continuing medical education (www.theMedEdPledge.com).

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Dr. Corrado De Marco earned his medical degree from McGill University, and went on to complete core internal medicine and cardiology residencies at the Université de Montréal. He has completed six months of additional subspecialty training in cardiac electrophysiology at the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM), and will soon begin a two-year fellowship in cardiac electrophysiology at NYU Langone. His areas of interest include arrhythmia ablation, new cardiac implantable electronic device technologies, and lead management, including complex lead extraction.

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Dr. Haddad is a cardiologist trained at the University of Montreal, currently pursuing an Interventional Cardiology Fellowship at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. He has been actively involved in cardiology research with a focus on complex coronary interventions, CTO PCI, and secondary prevention. Dr. Haddad also completed formal training in epidemiology and clinical research at Harvard University. He  has  amassed more than 20 publications, either as the primary author or co-author, presented more than 15 scientific abstracts both in oral or poster formats, moderated several conference sessions, and been involved in nearly 20 distinct research projects within the field of cardiology. Dr. Haddad was additionally engaged in administrative and educational responsibilities within Quebec and across Canada. He is planning to return to the University of Montreal Hospital Center (CHUM) upon completion of his fellowship.

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Dr. Malik is a resident physician in the Internal Medicine program at the University of Toronto. He received his Doctor of Medicine and Honours Bachelor of Science from the University of Toronto.

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Dr. Mansour is a distinguished cardiologist, interventional cardiologist, and researcher at the University of Montreal Hospital Center (CHUM), as well as a full professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montreal. His distinguished contributions span several areas of cardiology, from diagnosis and investigation to treatment of heart disease, including coronary artery disease, heart failure, and arrhythmias. As Director of Clinical Research and the Cell Therapy Program in the Cardiology Department of the CHUM, as well as Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at the Cité de la Santé Hospital in Laval, Dr. Mansour holds a leading position in the field of cardiovascular research in Quebec and Canada. A medical graduate of the Lebanese University, Dr. Mansour completed his specialization in internal medicine before specializing in cardiology at the University of Montreal. He then pursued a sub-specialization in interventional cardiology at the Paris-Sud Cardiovascular Institute in France. His academic and professional career also led him to conduct clinical research in cell therapy at the Aalst Cardiovascular Center in Belgium. With over 125 peer-reviewed publications and over 350 abstracts to his credit, Dr. Mansour is a prolific researcher whose expertise and contributions have had a significant impact on the field of cardiology.

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A French cardiologist who graduated from the University of Grenoble in 2008, Dr. Blandine Mondésert worked for two years as a senior arrhythmia clinician at the Grenoble University Hospital in France. She was also recognized as a cardiologist by the Collège des Médecins du Québec, through the France- Quebec agreements in July 2013. She subsequently completed a fellowship in electrophysiology at the Montreal Heart Institute between 2011 and 2013, where she specialized in the fields of electrophysiology (pacing and ablation), particularly in adult patients with congenital heart disease, within Dr. Paul Khairy’s team. She also developed expertise in the extraction of implantable cardiac equipment, for which she completed her extraction training at the Lille University Hospital in France in 2014. In July 2014, Dr. Blandine Mondésert joined the team at the Montreal Heart Institute, where she works as a cardiologist. She also serves as an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of Montreal.

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Dr. Eileen O’Meara is a professor at Université de Montréal and at the MontrealHeart Institute. She completed a Fellowship in Heart Failure, and another in Stress Echocardiography. She holds the MHI Carolyn and Richard J Renaud’s research chair in Heart Failure and is the co-director of the Myocardial Research Axis at MHI. She is a member of the Internal Review Board, of the Research Core Echocardiography Laboratory and of the Pharmacology Committee at MHI, as well as Chief of Outpatients Clinics at MHI. She was Co-Chair of the Primary Panel for the Canadian Cardiovascular Society and Canadian Heart Failure Society (CCS and CHFS) HF Guidelines and co- chair of the Cardiorenal Protection Guidelines for the CCS/CHFS (2020-2022). She is a section lead for the soon to be published CCS HFpEF guidelines. Her research focuses on cardio-kidney-inflammation interactions and fibrosis in HF, including circulating and cardiac imaging biomarkers; as well as on comorbid conditions that contribute to HF, more specifically diabetes/ adiposity, CKD, anemia and arrhythmia. She is involved in several large HF clinical trials as a National Lead Investigator, SC or EC member.

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Dr. Bryan Traynor, MB BCh graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland in 2015. He completed his general internal medicine (MRCPI 2017) and cardiology specialist training (CSCST 2024) through the RCPI in Ireland. Following his specialist training he undertook a 1-year subspecialty fellowship in interventional cardiology at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in Dublin. He then completed a further 2-year fellowship in complex coronary and structural heart disease intervention at St. Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto. He returned to Ireland as a consultant cardiologist at Cork University Hospital in August 2025.