Cardiovascular Business announces its Forty Under 40 Class of 2026

From a 24-year-old entrepreneur who founded the first U.S. proactive whole-body MRI facility to offer AI-powered coronary CT angiography to a cardiothoracic surgeon who has amassed more than 130 peer-reviewed publications before age 36, the Class of 2026 defies any single definition of cardiovascular excellence. 

Here’s our full list of the Cardiovascular Business Forty Under 40 Class of 2026:

Marissa Aldridge - As VP of Cardiovascular Services at HCA Trident Hospital, she launched a regional pulsed field ablation program while achieving one of the lowest PFA case costs across the entire HCA enterprise.

Fawzi Ameer, MD - Dual Medical Director at Avera Heart Hospital, Dr. Ameer is leading the design of a transformational 33,000 sq. ft. dedicated Cardiovascular Imaging Center while advancing multimodality cardiac imaging across two campuses.

Michael Andoniades - At 24, he founded TrueScan — Tampa Bay's first proactive whole-body MRI facility — and became the first U.S. provider to add AI-powered coronary CT angiography, identifying life-threatening CAD in asymptomatic patients within weeks of launch.

Amy A. Brownell, MSN, FNP-C, FACC - As Cardiovascular Service Line Director for Ascension Illinois, she oversees cardiovascular programs across a five-hospital network and pioneered a system of seven APN-led heart failure clinics serving the greater Chicagoland area.

Pierre Elias, MD - Medical Director for AI at Columbia/NYP, Dr. Elias built the nation's largest cardiovascular AI screening program — processing 1.1M+ ECGs and 140K echocardiograms — authored the most-read cardiac AI paper ever published in Nature, and leads a 54,000-patient NHLBI-funded trial.

Evan Ernst - As CEO of Who We Play For, he architected the Florida Second Chance Act — the first state law mandating ECG screening for student-athletes — and built a national model for sudden cardiac arrest prevention in youth sports.

Morgan Evans - Co-Founder and CEO of Agitated Solutions, she is leading the Orbis Microbubble Generator through U.S. clinical trials to standardize agitated saline contrast preparation and improve PFO detection accuracy for cryptogenic stroke patients.

Robert J. Fraser, MD - Senior Cardiologist at Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute, Dr. Fraser simultaneously directs the HCM Program, Metro Ambulatory Clinics, and the Echocardiography Lab — building the Twin Cities' premier hypertrophic cardiomyopathy center.

Jonathan H. Hart - Founder and CEO of TAILRD | Heart, he leveraged 20 years of cardiovascular service line expertise to build an AI-powered clinical decision support platform now in co-development with Mount Sinai, CRF, and Baylor Scott & White.

Will Hewitt - CEO and Co-Founder of HeartLab, he founded his first healthcare technology company at 18 and by 25 built a cloud-native cardiac imaging and reporting platform deployed across New Zealand, Australia, and the United States.

Sameer Hirji, MD, MPH - Cardiovascular surgeon-scientist at Mass General Brigham and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Hirji has amassed 300+ peer-reviewed publications and an H-index of 35 while serving as the inaugural recipient of the TSF/STS Michael J. Davidson Structural Heart Fellowship.

David Holler, MHA - As AVP of Heart & Vascular Services at Jersey City Medical Center, he led the ACC cardiac cath lab accreditation that earned system-wide recognition across RWJBarnabas Health's 12-hospital network as a model of cross-departmental collaboration.

Rikin Kadakia, MD - Interventional cardiologist at Salinas Valley Health, Dr. Kadakia built a 100+ procedure TAVR program exceeding national benchmarks and pioneered culturally responsive preventive care for one of California's most underserved agricultural communities.

Najah Khan, MD - Cardiology fellow and AI Innovations Scholar at Scripps Clinic, Dr. Khan developed enterprise-adopted AI tools integrating generative AI and deep learning for cardiovascular disease detection, and advises the FDA's Cardiac Science Research Consortium on AI in clinical trials.

Divya Kompella, MD - PGY-5 Cardiology Fellow at the University of Kansas Medical Center, Dr. Kompella combines multilingual clinical excellence with two decades of organizing cardiovascular health camps for underserved communities across the globe.

Megan Kraushaar, BS, RCS, FASE - Manager and Technical Director of Non-Invasive Imaging at UC San Diego Health, she is a nationally recognized ASE leader advancing echocardiography education, lab standards, and cardiac sonographer professional development.

Eric Kruse, BS, ACS, RDCS, RVT, FASE - Assistant Regional Director of Heart & Vascular Imaging at University of Chicago Medicine, he is an internationally recognized cardiac sonographer, prolific educator, and ASE society leader shaping the profession's standards and training pipelines.

Fabio V. Lima, MD, MPH, FACC - Structural interventional cardiologist at Sarasota Memorial Hospital and Clinical Assistant Professor at FSU, Dr. Lima brings 35+ peer-reviewed publications, ACC Innovation Section leadership, and pioneering early adoption of tricuspid transcatheter therapies and cardiovascular AI.

Amandeep Loi, PA-C - Founder and CEO of Intelagist, she leveraged a decade of interventional cardiology PA practice to build a virtual cardiac triage platform designed to reduce months-long cardiovascular specialty wait times to a fraction of the current norm.

J. Hunter Mehaffey, MD - Associate Professor and Director of Research in Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at West Virginia University, Dr. Mehaffey earned the fastest meritorious promotion in his department's history, backed by 150+ peer-reviewed publications in three years.

Purav Mody, MD - Medical Director of Non-Invasive Cardiology at Baylor Scott & White Heart Hospital Dallas, Dr. Mody achieved 10x growth in TEER procedure volume and led the highest national TEER volume at any VA hospital in 2021, supported by 30 publications and 20+ tricuspid interventions.

Ashwin S. Nathan, MD, MS - Assistant Professor at Penn Medicine, Dr. Nathan has established himself as a preeminent voice in cardiovascular health services research and clinical innovation, integrating rigorous scientific inquiry with clinical excellence and health policy expertise.

Maria Angelica Pabón Porras, MD - Instructor at Harvard Medical School and Associate Physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dr. Pabón secured $600K+ in competitive research funding as PI and published 51 papers on women's cardiovascular health and cardio-obstetrics while co-founding a Spanish-speaking community cardiology clinic.

Cristina Pecci, DO, FACC - Cardiologist at Heart and Vascular Center of Arizona, Dr. Pecci has dedicated her career to building gender-equitable cardiovascular care programs that integrate pregnancy history, hormonal transitions, and sex-specific risk factors into routine clinical screening and treatment.

Shane Prejean, MD - Interventional and structural heart cardiologist at Cardiovascular Institute of the South in Houma, Louisiana, Dr. Prejean has expanded advanced structural heart procedures to a rural regional patient population that would otherwise require lengthy travel to major medical centers.

Krishna Pundi, MD - Cardiac electrophysiologist and Instructor at Stanford University and the Palo Alto VA Medical Center, Dr. Pundi has led 50-person, FDA-engaged think tanks to define the future of technology-enabled cardiovascular clinical trials, advises leading cardiovascular technology companies and has built a multidisciplinary arrhythmia outcomes research program.

Faisal Rahman, BMBCh, FACC, FSCAI - Assistant Professor and Director of the Interventional Cardiology Fellowship and Cardiogenic Shock program at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Rahman has built one of the most credentialed early-career profiles in interventional cardiology at a premier academic institution.

Rebecca (Becca) Revell, RN, BSN, CCDS - Senior Director of Patient Services at PaceMate, she combines a decade of frontline cardiac device nursing with operational leadership of a cardiac remote monitoring platform.

James B. Reynolds, MBA, MHA - AVP of Outcomes & Care Transformation for Advocate Health's Heart & Vascular Service Line serving 275,000 lives, he delivered $6.5M in revenue improvement alongside top-decile national AMI mortality performance and built the HVSL Data Analytics Division from the ground up.

Blake Richards - Chief Operating Officer of Elucid, he has led commercial growth and operational scaling of an AI-powered cardiovascular imaging platform that has earned coverage in the Boston Globe, Axios Pro, and Cardiovascular Business.

Amar Shere, MD, FACC - General and preventive cardiologist at Hackensack University Medical Center, Dr. Shere has built a high-visibility South Asian cardiovascular prevention program and public health education platform reaching over 125,000 social media followers.

Jeremy A. Slivnick, MD - Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center, Dr. Slivnick is a nationally recognized echocardiographer and ASE Arthur Weyman Young Investigator Award recipient advancing cardiovascular imaging education and research.

Amir Soltanianzadeh - CEO of StimCardio, he is developing what the company describes as the world's first wearable device capable of both detecting and non-invasively treating atrial fibrillation through neuromodulation — an approach that could transform ambulatory AFib management for tens of millions of patients.

John “Jack” Squiers, MD - Cardiothoracic surgeon at Baylor Scott & White Heart Hospital Plano, Dr. Squiers has amassed 130+ peer-reviewed publications at age 35, establishing one of the most prolific early-career academic profiles in cardiovascular surgery in the country.

Olivia Strother, MPH - AVP of Pulmonary, Thoracic, Cardiac & Vascular Service Lines at HCA Healthcare, she shapes cardiovascular care strategy across 190+ hospitals after seven years of operational leadership at UCSF Health's Heart and Vascular Services.

Luai K. Tabaza, MD - Interventional cardiologist at Virtua Health, Dr. Tabaza holds rare multi-domain board certifications spanning interventional cardiology, nuclear cardiology, and cardiovascular CT while advancing high-risk PCI and complex endovascular care in southern New Jersey.

Jonathan A. Urbach, MD - Senior Cardiologist and dual Medical Director at Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute, Dr. Urbach leads the newly established Comprehensive Cardiovascular Care Coordination Center (C5) and holds Level 3 cardiovascular CT verification — the field's highest competency designation.

Sirisha Vadali, MD, FACC - Board-certified cardiologist and advanced lipidologist at Atria Heart/HonorHealth in Phoenix, Dr. Vadali is the youngest physician to simultaneously hold Program Director of the Cardiometabolic Center of Excellence and Medical Director of HonorHealth Thompson Peak Medical Center.

Ahmad Younes, MD, MBA, FACC, FSCAI, RPVI - Interventional cardiologist and System Director of the Pulmonary Embolism Response Team at Promedica's Jobst Vascular Institute in Toledo, Dr. Younes simultaneously leads endovascular services, directs a limb salvage program, and has built rheumatic heart disease screening programs in Kenya.

Anna Zilova, MD, MBA - Physician-administrator with an MD and MBA at US Heart & Vascular Houston, she rose from medical assistant to Clinical Manager, bringing rare ground-up clinical and operational fluency to the business leadership of a high-acuity cardiovascular group practice.