CVRTI Director
Robin M. Shaw, MD, PhD
Director
Nora Eccles Harrison Presidential Endowed Chair
Professor of Medicine
Program Directors
Ademuyiwa Aromolaran, PhD
Director, CVRTI Electrophysiology
Dr. Aromolaran is an investigator within the Nora Eccles Harrison Cardiovascular Research Training institute (CVRTI) and an Associate Professor of Surgery. Dr. Aromolaran’s research is focused on ion channel (K, Ca, Na) electrophysiology and elucidating cellular mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias due to inherited mutations in channel subunits or acquired in metabolic disorders (obesity, diabetes, lipotoxicity, inflammation).
Dipayan Chaudhuri, MD, PhD
Director, CVRTI Metabolism
Dr. Chaudhuri earned his medical and graduate degrees at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He then completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and subsequently a clinical fellowship in Cardiovascular Diseases at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Concurrently with his clinical fellowship, he completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital.
Lisa Lesniewski, PhD
Director, CVRTI Vascular and Genetics
Dr. Lisa Lesniewski is a Professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Geriatrics at the University of Utah. She received her PhD in kinesiology from Texas A&M University and performed postdoctoral training in metabolism at the University of California San Diego and vascular aging research at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Stavros Drakos, MD, PhD
Director, CVRTI Muscle Biology
Dr. Drakos is an investigator at the Nora Eccles Harrison Cardiovascular Research and Training Institute (CVRTI) and a Professor of Cardiology at the Univ. of Utah Health and School of Medicine. He is the Medical Director of the institution’s historic Cardiac Mechanical Support/Artificial Heart Program, Co-Chief Heart Failure & Transplant and Director of Research for the Division of Cardiology.
Associate Director
Tara Hitzeman, MPH
Associate Director
Tara joined the CVRTI in November 2019 as the Operations Director. She oversees CVRTI Core Staff, works with Investigators to ensure they have the resources needed to maintain outstanding scientific research programs, and defines institute strategic goals with the CVRTI Director.
