Dr. Harold Bays is Board Certified in Endocrinology and Internal Medicine, Diplomate of the American Board of Obesity Medicine, and Diplomate of the American Board of Clinical Lipidology. He is the Medical Director of Monroe Biomedical Research/ Louisville Metabolic and Atherosclerosis Research Center and Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.

He has served as an Investigator for over 700 Phase I - IV clinical trials regarding treatments for obesity, dyslipidemias, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and other cardiometabolic and hormonal disorders.

Dr. Bays is Chief Science Officer of the Obesity Medicine Association and is Editor in Chief for Obesity Pillars – the journal of the Obesity Medicine Association. Dr. Bays has written and/or served as a contributing author to over 350 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts and book chapters, hundreds of scientific abstracts presented at major scientific meetings.

Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, MBA, FACC, FAHA, FESC, MSCAI, FASPC, is the Director of the Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital and the Dr. Valentin Fuster Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine (with Tenure) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

After graduating as valedictorian from Boston Latin School, Dr. Bhatt earned his science degree as a National Merit Scholar at MIT, his MD from Cornell, his MPH from Harvard, and his Executive MBA from Oxford. He trained in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic. He completed fellowships in interventional cardiology and cerebral and peripheral vascular intervention and served as Chief Interventional Fellow at the Cleveland Clinic. He then served as the Chief of Cardiology at VA Boston Healthcare System and subsequently as Executive Director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Dr. Bhatt has authored or co-authored over 2000 publications.

Michael J. Blaha, MD, MPH, is Professor of Cardiology and Epidemiology and presently serves as the Director of Clinical Research for the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, Director of the Cardiometabolic Clinic, and Program Director for the Preventive Cardiology Fellowship. His clinical interests include primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease, with emphasis on early intervention in patients with advanced subclinical atherosclerosis detected with cardiac computed tomography.

Clinically, he practices as a preventive cardiologist specializing in cardiometabolic disease and cardiac CT interpretation. His clinic specializes in patients with cardiometabolic disease and advanced subclinical atherosclerosis, and the focused use of an array of lifestyle and pharmacotherapies to mitigate that risk.

Matthew Jay Budoff, MD, FACC, FAHA, FASPC, is a professor of medicine at the 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 the University of California at Riverside (BS) and graduated as a member of Alpha Omega Alpha from George Washington University School of Medicine (MD).

Dr. Budoff has authored or coauthored more than 50 books and book chapters and more than 1000 articles. He has received numerous research grants from the National Institutes of Health.

In addition to his 2015 appointment as the Endowed Chair of Preventive Cardiology at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, he has been recognized for his work by the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography, from which he received the Gold Medal Award and was recently designated as a Master of the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (MSCCT). He was recently named Cardiologist of the Year by the American College of Cardiology California chapter.

Dr Salvatore Carbone, PhD, RDN, MS, FHFSA, FASPEN is an Associate Professor and Program Director of the Nutrition Program at the EVMS School of Health Professions, and an Associate Professor within the EVMS Division of Endocrine and Metabolic Disorders, Strelitz Diabetes Center, Department of Internal Medicine, at the Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences at Old Dominion University. Previously, Dr. Carbone served as a tenured Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Additionally, he is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN).

Dr. Carbone is a nationally and internationally recognized leader in nutrition and dietetics, with expertise in the role of nutrition and obesity in the development and progression of chronic diseases. Dr. Carbone's research focuses on dietary interventions and their influence on body composition, cardiorespiratory fitness, and energy metabolism, particularly in patients with obesity and heart failure.

Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, President of Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital and Physician-in-Chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital. Dr. Fuster is the General Director of the National Center for Cardiovascular Investigation, or CNIC (equivalent to NHLBI) in Madrid, Spain.

He is an author of more than 1000 scientific articles (HI-187). He was named Editor-in-Chief of the journal Nature Reviews in Cardiology and, more recently, of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Among his many achievements, it is noteworthy that Dr. Fuster is the only cardiologist to have received the highest awards for research from the three leading cardiovascular organizations: the American Heart Association (Gold Medal and Research Achievement Award), the American College of Cardiology (Living Legend and Life Achievement Award 2017) and the European Society of Cardiology (Gold Medal).

Borja Ibáñez MD, PhD, FESC, completed his clinical fellowship in cardiology at the Fundación Jiménez Díaz Hospital in Madrid, during which he became interested in clinical research, working primarily with invasive imaging techniques to study atherothrombotic disease. After completing his training in clinical cardiology, he spent a three-year training period in basic research at Mount Sinai in New York.

Since returning to Spain, he has combined his scientific activity in the CNIC with clinical activity in the Fundación Jiménez Díaz University Hospital. His research ranges from studying the mechanisms underlying the development of myocardial diseases to conducting clinical trials to test therapies identified by his group in preclinical studies. His clinical activity consists mainly of coronary interventions for patients suffering an acute myocardial infarction. To conduct this translational research, he uses noninvasive imaging technologies, primarily magnetic resonance imaging, and develops new imaging algorithms to improve their use at both research and clinical levels.

Parag H. Joshi, MD, MHS, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine's Division of Cardiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He specializes in heart disease and preventive cardiology, including abnormal cholesterol, family history of heart disease, early atherosclerosis, heart attacks, and strokes. He also performs and conducts research on noninvasive imaging.

Dr. Joshi earned his medical degree at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine and completed a residency in internal medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. He received advanced training in cardiovascular diseases and prevention through fellowships at the Piedmont Heart Institute, the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He also received a Master of Health Science in clinical investigation from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. López Melgar graduated in Medicine from the Autónoma University of Madrid and completed her Cardiology specialization at 12 de Octubre University Hospital in Madrid. She further specialized in cardiovascular imaging at the UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco (USA) and at the 12 de Octubre University Hospital in Madrid (Spain). She began her research career at the National Cardiovascular Research Center (CNIC) in Spain, focusing on advanced cardiovascular imaging under the guidance of Dr. Valentín Fuster and Dr. Borja Ibáñez. Under their mentorship, she earned her Doctor of Medicine degree with honors from the Complutense University of Madrid.

She leads several research initiatives in cardiovascular disease prevention, with a particular focus on atherosclerosis, early ischemic heart disease, and AI-guided ECG algorithms for the early detection of atrial fibrillation. Dr. López Melgar has authored more than 50 scientific publications, many in high-impact journals, and holds several nationally competitive research grants.

Khurram Nasir, MD, MPH, MSc, FACC, FAHA, FASPC, FSSCT, is a William A. Zoghbi, MD Centennial Chair in Cardiovascular Health, Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, and Chief of Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Wellness at the Department of Cardiology, Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center, Houston Methodist. He is also the Director for the Center for Cardiovascular Computational Health & Precision Medicine (C3-PH) at Houston Methodist.

Dr. Nasir received his MD from Pakistan, followed by a master's degree in public health at Johns Hopkins University. He completed his internal medicine residency at Boston Medical Center and cardiology fellowship at Yale University. He also received postdoctoral research training at the Division of Cardiology at Johns Hopkins Hospital and at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Nasir, with more than 900 publications, is recognized among the top 2% of scientists worldwide supported by NIH for his cardiovascular prevention and population health research.

Donna H. Ryan, MD, is Professor Emerita at Pennington Biomedical in Baton Rouge, LA, USA, where she oversaw Clinical Research for 25 years. Her research interests included lifestyle interventions and dietary approaches to weight loss, and she was an investigator on NIH studies, including POUNDS Lost, Look AHEAD, DPP, and DASH. She was Principal Investigator for the US Department of Defense for a series of awards that targeted military nutrition approaches to improve soldier readiness and performance. A particular research interest was improving primary care management of obesity and evaluating commercial approaches to weight management. She also studies the use of medications and devices to aid weight management.

She was President of The Obesity Society and was designated Master of Obesity Medicine by the American Board of Obesity Medicine. She has more than 300 publications and remains an active consultant and advisor to companies developing drugs, devices, lifestyle programs, and medical approaches to obesity management.

Leslee J. Shaw, PhD, FACC, MASNC, FAHA, MSCCT, is a leading outcomes researcher with a major focus on the clinical diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, including a particular emphasis on sex differences. As a leading expert in this field, Dr. Shaw provides valuable insights and research to improve patient outcomes. She is an endowed chair and tenured professor with appointments in Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science, Population Health, and Cardiology. She is the Director of the Blavatnik Family Institute for Women's Health Research and vice chair for research for the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science. In her roles, she leads women's health researchers across the Mount Sinai Health System, including multidisciplinary teams to tackle compelling research issues in women's health.

In her previous position at Weill Cornell Medical College, she was the Director of the Dalio Institute. As well, at Emory University, she was the Director for the Emory Clinical Cardiovascular Research Institute, where she organized the conduct of more than 100 trials and registries annually within the Division of Cardiology.

Dr. Seamus Whelton, MD, MPH, is an Associate Professor of Cardiology and a member of the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease. His research expertise includes pathogenesis, risk prediction, prevention, and treatment of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, with an emphasis on identifying coronary artery calcium on cardiac CT. He is the Director of the Advanced Subclinical Atherosclerosis Clinic, which focuses on treating patients with incidentally discovered coronary artery calcium detected by CT imaging.

He is also an expert on pathogenesis, epidemiology, risk factors, and possible treatments for aortic valve calcification and aortic stenosis. He has led pioneering research to describe the use of aortic valve calcification to predict the risk of aortic stenosis. His work has also highlighted the possible use of aspirin to prevent aortic stenosis among persons with elevated lipoprotein(a).