Professor Zoe Wainer is the inaugural Director General of the Australian Centre for Disease Control, responsible for establishing and leading Australia’s national public health agency and strengthening the country’s preparedness for future health threats. The Australian CDC provides independent, evidence-based advice on disease prevention, surveillance and response to safeguard the health of Australians. Professor Wainer is a values-driven C-suite health leader with experience across government, academia and the private sector. She previously served as Deputy Secretary for Community and Public Health at the Victorian Department of Health and as Chief Medical Officer for Bupa Australia and New Zealand. A medical doctor with a background in cardiothoracic surgery and a PhD from the University of Melbourne, she has expertise in public health, value-based healthcare and women’s health. Professor Wainer has worked internationally in global health, including public health initiatives in Timor-Leste and surgical programs in Fiji and Tonga.

Associate Professor Sarah Zaman is an Interventional Cardiologist at Westmead Hospital and an Academic at the University of Sydney. A/Prof Zaman leads a team of researchers focused on spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD), coronary artery disease and health equity. She is a NHMRC Investigator Grant Fellow, a National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow, a United States SCAI-ELM Fellow and a Lancet Commissioner on Atherosclerotic Coronary Artery Disease. She serves on multiple guideline writing committees, for example, having written the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) global strategic framework for Acute Coronary Syndromes, and now serving as co-Chair writing the ‘5th Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction’.

Gemma is a Professor in Medicine at the University of Sydney and an Interventional Cardiologist at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney. She is the Chair of the University of Sydney’s multi-disciplinary Cardiovascular Initiative. Gemma is committed to improving the care for heart attack patients, unravelling key mechanisms underlying susceptibility and response to heart attack, with studies extending from the bench to large cohort studies and clinical trials. Discoveries in her Laboratory have been published in leading journals including the Lancet, Circulation, JACC and European Heart Journal, with > 250 publications. Gemma is a principal investigator on grants >$42 Mill. Her discoveries and innovative strategies have resulted in a US patent, and 5 provisional patents spanning diagnostic and therapeutic fields. Gemma is founder and CSO for Australian start-ups Prokardia and Kardiomics, and the not-for-profit CAD Frontiers Pty Ltd. She was awarded a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Excellence Award for Top Ranked Practitioner Fellow (Australia- 2018), NSW Ministerial Award for Cardiovascular Research Excellence (2019) and was the second female to be awarded the prestigious Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand RT Hall Prize for outstanding and sustained research achievement (2023). Gemma serves as a member of the Editorial Board of leading international journals including Circulation and Cardiovascular Research and an Associate Editor for Heart, Lung and Circulation. She is a passionate advocate for cardiovascular research, working as President of the Australian Cardiovascular Alliance with a national team to secure $220 Million Federal funding for the Mission for Cardiovascular Health, and to build new pathways for research to best serve the unmet health needs of Australians. She chairs the MRFF Mission (CV) Expert Advisory Panel. She is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and serves/has served as a non-executive Director on multiple community Boards, including the Heart Foundation. In 2023, Gemma was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), in the Australia Day Honours.

Professor John O'Sullivan is an academic cardiologist and translational scientist whose work defines the cardiometabolic mechanisms of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and their therapeutic targeting. He is the inaugural Professor of Cardiometabolic Medicine at the University of Sydney and directs the HFpEF program at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, where he has developed a dedicated HFpEF bench-to-bedside-to-trials program. He leads the DECODE-HFpEF framework, a translational program applying deep human phenotyping, biobanking, and metabolomics to identify mechanistic pathways linking obesity, inflammation, and myocardial fibrosis. His group has identified cardiometabolic biomarkers and therapeutic targets translating into patented diagnostic technologies, early-phase clinical trials including pEFNAD, CardioNAD, and pEF-EX, and regulatory engagement with the U.S. FDA. He is founder of a clinical-stage spinout developing cardiometabolic diagnostics and contributed to biomarker recommendations in the 2023 Australian cardiovascular risk guidelines. Trained at Harvard University, the Broad Institute, and Massachusetts General Hospital, he maintains active collaborations with leading groups at Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge. His work contributes to emerging international frameworks positioning HFpEF as a cardiometabolic disorder requiring mechanism-directed therapy.

Professor Johanna Montgomery completed her PhD in Physiology at the University of Otago New Zealand. She then performed her postdoctoral research at Stanford University USA where she gained her expertise in cellular electrophysiology techniques to examine neural plasticity. She is now a Principal Investigator at the University of Auckland. She has been awarded prestigious national and international awards including the Physiological Society of New Zealand Excellence in Research Award, the Colin Pillinger International Exchanges Award (Royal Society London), the Eppendorf and Science International Prize for Neurobiology Finalist Award, and the Servier Distinguished Young Investigator Award (International Union of Physiological Scientists). Her research focusses on neural plasticity in the heart and in the brain. She has a major interest in neural control in atrial fibrillation, and in womens heart heath, with research spanning from the cell to the community.

Sarah Fairley trained in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and has a PhD from Queens University Belfast. Sarah currently works as an interventional and obstetric cardiologist at Wellington Hospital, is the current chair of the NZ Interventional Working Group and Treasurer of the NZ branch of CSANZ. Sarah has interests in complex PCI / intracoronary imaging / high-risk cardiac pregnancies / SCAD / RHD / equitable healthcare delivery.

Roxana Mehran, MD, FACC, is an internationally renowned interventional cardiologist, clinical research expert, and trialist in the field of cardiovascular disease. She is among the most prolific researchers in the United States and is a globally respected leader of an academic research center focused on designing and implementing randomized clinical trials, outcomes research projects, and high-impact academic publications. She has focused on personalized medicine and developed individual risk scores for bleeding and acute kidney injury, and she regularly contributes to the development of clinical guidelines. With over 3,000 publications, she has been listed by Clarivate Analytics among the Most Cited Researchers – Top 1% and The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds (Thomson Reuters) for the past ten consecutive years, ranking among the top 50 researchers worldwide. Dr. Mehran currently serves as President (2026–2027) of the American College of Cardiology and leads The Lancet Commission on Women’s Cardiovascular Diseases, which aims to bridge gaps in scientific discovery, clinical trials, and care for women with cardiovascular disease. She is Director of the Women’s Heart and Vascular Center at Mount Sinai Heart, spearheading a program designed to meet the unique needs of women’s cardiovascular health. She also founded Women as One, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing opportunities for women in medicine. Dr. Mehran is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Ellis Island Medal of Honor; the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Silver Medal; the ESC Andreas Grüntzig Lecture Plaque; the Women in Cardiology Mentoring Award; the CRF Pulse-Setter Champion Award; the Jacobi Medallion from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; and, most recently, the ESC Gold Medal (2025) and the AHA Laennec Master Clinician Award (2025).