Barbara Casadei graduated (cum Laude & Medaglia Teresiana) at the University of Pavia, Italy and moved to Oxford to undertake her clinical and research training. She was awarded the Joan and Richard Doll Fellowship at Green College, a DPhil in Cardiovascular Medicine in 1995, and a British Heart Foundation Personal Chair in 2012. Since 2024, she has been Head of the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London. Barbara is a Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, holds the highest honour of the British Cardiovascular Society (The Mackenzie Medal) and is Past President of the European Society of Cardiology (2018-20). She is the co-founder of EuroHeart (https://www.escardio.org/Research/euroheart#), an initiative that supports the assessment and improvement of quality of cardiovascular care in 15 countries, and the incoming Editor-in-Chief of JAMA Cardiology (2026-). She leads a bench-to-bedside translational research programme focused on atrial fibrillation, which spans from investigations in human tissue and cells to clinical trials.