Gill Awards

Dr. Svati H. Shah is a physician scientist and Associate Dean of Genomics and Director of Precision Genomics Collaboratory in the Duke School of Medicine; Vice-Chief of Translational Research and Director of the Adult Cardiovascular Genetics Clinic in the Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine; Co-Director of Translational Research in the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute (DMPI); and a faculty member in the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI). Her research focus is on metabolic and genetic pathways of cardiometabolic diseases, integrating diverse genomic, metabolomic and proteomic techniques for identification of novel mechanisms of disease and biomarkers. Her multi-disciplinary molecular epidemiology lab within the DMPI has quantitative and molecular components and leverages large biorepositories on to perform discovery studies using omics technologies, with subsequent functional validation for mechanistic insight. 

Dr. Caldwell, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Scholar at UC Davis specializing in advanced imaging methodologies to investigate arrhythmias at the tissue level. Her research spans from  sub-cellular to whole-heart investigations, focusing on autonomic signaling and arrhythmia development. She targets the structural and functional remodeling of β-adrenergic receptor signaling in heart failure, with an emphasis on sex- and region-specific variations to uncover pivotal insights into arrhythmia triggers. 

Dr. Koyama is a cardiologist and scientist specializing in the genetic epidemiology of cardiovascular diseases. He trained as both a cardiologist and a genetic epidemiologist in Japan and is now working as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Broad Institute. His primary research interest lies in identifying disease-causing and modifying factors through the analysis of large-scale biomedical data.

Dr. Travers is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Division of Cardiology where his research focuses on understanding and combating cardiac fibrosis and diastolic heart failure. He obtained his PhD from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital where he conducted research on the therapeutic potential of GRK2 inhibition in ischemic cardiomyopathy. His postdoctoral work, under the mentorship of Timothy McKinsey, focuses on the molecular mechanisms and cellular specificity of histone deacetylase inhibitors in treating diastolic dysfunction and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. Dr. Travers was the 2022 ISHR Young Investigator Competition Award winner as well as a finalist for the AHA Katz Basic Research Prize, and through his NIH Pathway to Independence Award hopes to soon start his own research program advancing cardiovascular science and developing novel therapies for the treatment of cardiac fibrosis and heart failure.