Council Candidates 2025

Art Yurdagul, Jr., Ph.D. Assistant Professor LSUHSC-Shreveport Research Interests:   My research centers on the mechanisms underlying cardiovascular disease, with a primary focus on atherosclerosis progression and regression. A key area of interest is the dynamic behavior of vascular smooth muscle cells (vSMCs) and their role in plaque stability. During atherosclerosis, vSMCs undergo phenotypic changes that…

Morgan Salmon, Ph.D. Research Assistant Professor University of Michigan Research Interests: Dr. Salmon and her team broadly seek to understand mechanisms that regulate aortic aneurysm formation, progression and rupture in abdominal and thoracic aortic aneurysms. Dr. Salmon’s team has been on the forefront of helping develop novel models of chronic, thrombotic aneurysm formation that mimics…

Callie Kwartler, Ph.D. Assistant Professor University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Research Interests:  My lab works on molecular and epigenetic mechanisms driving smooth muscle cell fate specification and to assess how those pathways or chromatin remodeling changes are altered in patients with moyamoya disease. Moyamoya disease (MMD), characterized by bilateral progressive stenosis and…

Marie Billaud, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Brigham and Women’s Hospital Research Interests: My lab works on aortic aneurysms using human specimens and mouse models to answer various questions pertaining to the pathological mechanisms of the disease. Our lab studies several patient populations, including patients born with a bicuspid aortic valve, the most common congenital cardiac malformation…