Dr. Baggish’s research interests include exercise-induced cardiac remodeling, pre-participation screening / sudden death prevention, high performance physiology, performance enhancing substance use, and exercise dose and clinical outcomes. He has received research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the US Department of Defense, the American College of Sports Medicine, the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, and the NFL Players Association. He has published more than 300 original peer reviewed research articles and numerous invited reviews, editorials, and book chapters and serves on the editorial boards of multiple journals including Circulation and Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise.

Matthew Jay Budoff, MD, FACC, FAHA, is a professor of medicine at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Endowed Chair of Preventive Cardiology at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Dr. Budoff is a graduate of University of California at Riverside (BS) and graduated a member of Alpha Omega Alpha from George Washington University School of Medicine (MD).

Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Consultant in Cardiovascular Diseases and Internal Medicine. Dr. Gersh received his MB, ChB, from the University of Cape Town in South Africa and received his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He received the degree of Ph.D. (honoris causa) from The University of Coimbra, Portugal in 2005.

Dr Gersh has approximately 1321 publications (1172 manuscripts and 149 book chapters) (h-index 151). In 2014 and 2015, was named in the Thomson Reuters list of individuals with the greatest number of cited scientific papers 2002-2012. Dr. Gersh is the editor of 15 books and is on the editorial board of approximately 20 peer review journals.

He is an Honorary Professor of Medicine at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. In 2019, Dr. Gersh was appointed as an Honorary Clinical Professor in the Centre for Clinical Pharmacology, William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University in London.

Dr Gersh has received multiple awards from the American Heart Association (Distinguished Scientist Award), the American College of Cardiology, the European Society of Cardiology (Gold Medal), the Mayo Clinic, University College, London, and the University of Cape Town.

Dr Gersh received the degree of Ph.D. (honoris causa) from The University of Coimbra, Portugal in 2005. At ESC in 2013, he was designated as one of four “legends of modern cardiology”. In 2020, he was named as a highly cited researcher by Web of Science.

Rick A. Nishimura, M.D., was a consultant in the Division of Structural Heart Disease, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, with a joint appointment in the Division of Interventional Cardiology. He joined the staff of Mayo Clinic in 1983 and holds the academic rank of professor of medicine, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. Dr. Nishimura is recognized with the distinction of the Judd and Mary Morris Leighton Professorship in Cardiovascular Diseases and Hypertension.

Dr. Nishimura went to Knox College for his undergraduate degree, subsequently receiving his medical degree from Rush Medical College. He then attended the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine (now Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences) for his internship, residency and cardiovascular fellowship.

Dr. Nishimura's practice in the field of cardiovascular diseases included subspecialty interests in cardiac hemodynamic valvular heart disease, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and pericardial disease. He received referrals from cardiologists all over the country to consult in difficult diagnostic cases. Aside from patient care, he also worked in the Cardiac Echocardiography and Catheterization Laboratories, specializing in hemodynamics and structural heart disease. Dr. Nishimura has written over 500 manuscripts and 50 book chapters in the field of cardiovascular diseases. He has served on editorial boards for prominent medical journals and has been a distinguished visiting professor at multiple academic centers. He is a recipient of the Plummer Distinguished Clinician Award and the Mayo Clinic Distinguished Clinician Award, as well as the Presidential Citation from the American College of Cardiology.

Dr. Nishimura also served as the Terrance D. and Judith A. Paul Director of MayoExpert. In this role, he led an institutional effort to provide the optimal Mayo Clinic-vetted knowledge to Mayo physicians through electronic systems to be used at the point of care. He formed the Mayo Clinic Knowledge Management Program with the goal of enhancing patient care through digital solutions.

Dr. Nishimura has a passion for education and was involved in educating medical students, fellows and practicing cardiologists, both at Mayo Clinic and through numerous medical meetings. He has been honored multiple times as Outstanding Cardiovascular Diseases Teacher and Teacher of the Year, with induction into the Hall of Fame. He has also been recognized with the Mayo Clinic Distinguished Educator Award; the Gifted Teacher Award, conferred by the American College of Cardiology; and the Laennec Award for Clinician Educator, conferred by the American Heart Association.

Dr. Nishimura was active in the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association, having served on the Board of Trustees and was the Chair of multiple ACC educational committees.  He has been on several national guideline writing committees and chaired the ACC/AHA Guidelines on the Management of Valvular Heart Disease.

Dr. Carole Warnes is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine and Pediatric Cardiology at Mayo Clinic-Rochester, Minnesota, United States.

She received her medical degree from Newcastle upon Tyne University in England and then pursued cardiology training in London.  She completed a postgraduate thesis at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) before returning to the National Heart Hospital in London for another two years as a British Heart Foundation Scholar.  She joined the Department of Cardiovascular Diseases at Mayo Clinic in 1987, where she founded the Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ACHD) Clinic. 

At Mayo, she received the Henry S. Plummer Distinguished Physician Award in 2004 and the Distinguished Educator Award in 2010.  She remains passionate about education and has trained about 30 fellows in ACHD, with many of them now leading ACHD practices around the world. She has received the Cardiovascular Teacher of the Year 8 times and in 2014 Mayo awarded her the Lifetime Achievement for Outstanding Contributions to Medical Education. 

In 2015, she received the Laennec Master Clinician Award from the American Heart Association (AHA) and in 2016 she was honored with the Distinguished Fellow Award from the American College of Cardiology (ACC), where she had served on the Board of Trustees for 7 years.  In 2018, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ISACHD), and in 2021 received the Mayo Distinguished Alumni Award.

Her research interests include the long-term outcomes of ACHD patients and the management of pregnancy and heart disease.  She Chaired the first ACC/AHA Guidelines for the Management of ACHD, has edited three books, and published over 200 manuscripts.

Dr. Nathan Wong, PhD, MPH, FACC, FAHA, FNLA, MASPC, is a cardiovascular epidemiologist, specialist in preventive cardiology, and Professor and Director, Heart Disease Prevention Program, Division of Cardiology at the University of California, Irvine with joint appointments in epidemiology at UC Irvine and UCLA and population health and disease prevention at UC Irvine. He holds MPH and PhD degrees in epidemiology from Yale University and is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, National Lipid Association (NLA), and master of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology (ASPC).  He is a past president of the ASPC, Pacific Lipid Association chapter of the NLA, and the InterAmerican Heart.