Alta Schutte is Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at UNSW Sydney, and the Global Co-Director of the Cardiovascular Division of The George Institute for Global Health. She is internationally recognised as a leader in hypertension, having conceived and led major research programs in Australia and globally. She’s contributed over 500 publications to the peer literature, including in the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet and JAMA. She is a Trustee of the May Measurement Month global blood pressure screening initiative, an invited author of the Lancet Commission of Hypertension, and senior author of the 2020 International Society of Hypertension Global Hypertension Guidelines. She is Associate Editor of the journal, Hypertension, and has received numerous international awards for her work, including the 2022 American Heart Association’s Harriet Dustan Award, and 2023 Peter Sleight Excellence Award in Hypertension Clinical Research from the World Hypertension League. In Australia, she received the NHMRC’s Fiona Stanley Award for the highest ranked $5 million Synergy Grant, and was ranked by The Australian in 2023 and 2024 as the Leading Scientist in Australia in the field of Vascular Medicine. She is the Company Secretary of the Australian Cardiovascular Alliance, Co-Chair of the National Hypertension Taskforce of Australia, and Past President of the International Society of Hypertension.

Crisdion is a postdoctoral researcher in the Cardiac Cellular Systems laboratory at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute. He was awarded his PhD from La Trobe University in 2025, where his doctoral research focused on the transcriptional regulation of fibroblast identity and the mechanisms driving the reversibility of cardiac fibrosis. Crisdion’s research applies single-cell transcriptomics and epigenomics to map transcriptional circuitry governing cell states, with a particular focus on identifying transcription factors that drive non-ischemic cardiac fibrosis and those that promote reverse remodelling. His work aims to uncover new druggable molecular drivers of fibrosis and develop strategies to restore healthy cardiac tissu

Scott completed his Cardiology Advanced Training at the Royal Hobart Hospital and Western Health and is currently completing an echo fellowship at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital alongside a PhD utilising artificial intelligence/machine learning to evaluate outcomes in patients with heart failure.

Dr Misha Dagan is a cardiologist at Alfred Health and a current PhD candidate at Monash University, undertaking doctoral research through the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and The Alfred. Her PhD focuses on the pulmonary circulation and right heart dysfunction in HFpEF and pulmonary hypertension, supported by an NHMRC scholarship.

James is in their ultimate year at the University of Sydney, studying Bachelor of Biomedical Engineering Honours and Bachelor of Medical Science. He has a strong interest in the field of scientific research, and enjoys combining elements of engineering and science. Currently he is completing their engineering thesis with the Cardiology Workshop at Westmead Hospital led by A.Prof Pierre Qian. James' supervisor is Dr Poornima Balaji who has been exploring the use of stereotactic body radiation therapy as a treatment for ventricular arrhythmias and heart failure in vitro on human iPSC derived cardiomyocytes and in vivo on myocardial infarct sheep models.

John Atherton (MBBS, PhD, FRACP, FCSANZ, FHFA) is a Pre-eminent Staff Specialist and Director of Cardiology at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH) and Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland. Professor Atherton was one of four non-European official content reviewers for the 2016 European Society of Cardiology Heart Failure Guidelines and is a European Society of Cardiology Heart Failure Association Ambassador. He chaired the 2018 National Heart Foundation of Australia/ Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ) Heart Failure Guidelines, sits on the Therapeutic Guidelines Cardiovascular Expert Group and co-authored the first universal definition of heart failure. Professor Atherton is Data Custodian for the Queensland Cardiac Outcomes Registry (QCOR)- Heart Failure and sits as a Director on the National Cardiac Registry Board. His clinical and research interests include investigating novel methods to detect pre-symptomatic heart disease, heart failure disease management, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and cardiac genetics.

Associate Professor Kavitha Muthiah is a clinical and academic cardiologist specialising in Advanced Heart Failure, Mechanical Circulatory Support and Heart Transplant at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney with conjoint appointments at UNSW and the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute as Division Lead. She is current Chair of the Heart Failure Council for CSANZ and Associate Director of the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplant Registry. Following her Phd studies, she completed three additional clinical fellowships in London, UK and in Melbourne. She has served as on consensus statements for the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplant (ISHLT). She has been recipient of the ISHLT Award in MCS Translational Research being the first female and first Australian recipient of this international award. In 2018, she was recipient of the Heart Foundation Innovation Award. She is current supervisor of PhD and honours students with over 80 peer-reviewed publications.