Congenital Heart

Brian Joy
Assistant Professor, Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, University of Minnesota

Dr. Joy is a pediatric cardiac intensivist at the University of Minnesota.  He is the section head of Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Medicine, the medical director of the Pediatric Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit, and co-director of the Pediatric Heart Center at M Health Fairview Masonic Children's Hospital.  His focus is on quality improvement and patient safety, and a research focus on improving the care of patients with congenital heart disease. 

Robroy MacIver
Children's Hospital of MN

Robroy MacIver is a congenital cardiac surgeon at Children's Hospital of MN. His research interests include bioengineered tissue, tracheal stents and ventricular assist devices.

Bradley Clark
University of Minnesota

Bradley C. Clark, MD is a pediatric cardiologist and electrophysiologist at Masonic Children’s Hospital.  He is the director of pediatric electrophysiology and the Associate Director of the Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship at the University of Minnesota.  Dr. Clark has clinical expertise in the medical and procedural treatment of heart rhythm disorders in children and adults with congenital heart disease.  Dr. Clark’s research background includes radiation reduction in pediatric device implantations and minimally invasive options for pacemaker and ICD implantation.  He has received grant funding for multiple medical devices including a pericardial access tool and ablation torque tool.

David Buyck
Researcher, Computer Science, University of Minnesota 

PhD student at the Visible Heart Laboratories 

Gwen Fischer
Associate Chair of Research, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics

Dr. Fischer is an Associate Director of the Earl E. Bakken Medical Devices Center, Associate Chair of Research, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty Member, Division of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, Pediatric ECMO Co-Director, UofMN Medical School. Dr. Fischer is a Pediatric Critical Care Physician with a passion for development and testing of innovative medical products and pharmaceuticals. Her expertise is in critical care from preemies to adults, and devices for adults and pediatric patients with an emphasis in congenital heart disease, ECMO, and cardiopulmonary devices. Dr. Fischer founded and directs an industry-academic consortium to accelerate pediatric medical devices (www.thepdic.org). Dr. Fischer has significant experience in developing medical devices and has successfully worked with numerous medical device companies in product development, including clinical studies, and commercialization. Dr. Fischer has con
 sulted with the FDA Pediatric Advisory Committee and reviewed post-market SAE for drugs and devices. Dr. Fischer is a sought-after speaker with a portfolio of publications on medical device, critical care, ECMO, drugs and innovation. Dr. Fischer has received numerous awards including ‘Minnesota’s Top Doctor.”

Paul Iaizzo
University of Minnesota

Paul A. Iaizzo, PhD FHRS ([email protected]) is a Professor is the Departments of Surgery, Integrative Biology & Physiology and the Carlson School of Management, at the University of Minnesota. He also serves on the graduate faculties in Biomedical Engineering, Neuroscience, Integrative Biology & Physiology, Biological Science, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and Mechanical Engineering. He is the Director of the Malignant Hyperthermia Diagnostic Center and Medtronic Professor of Visible Heart® Research. Additionally, he is the Associate Director and Medtronic Chair of the Institute for Engineering in Medicine, also at the University of Minnesota. He earned both MS and PhD degrees (Focus: Physiology/Neurophysiology) from the University of Minnesota. His main research focus is translational systems physiology, where his research group does a broad range of studies. The Visible Heart® Laboratories are well known for their multimodal imaging techniques of functional cardiac anatomies and device testing within large mammalian hearts, including human: see the Atlas of Human Cardiac Anatomy (http://www.vhlab.umn.edu/atlas/). Other research areas include: cardiac pacing and ablation, muscle pathophysiology and biophysical properties, thermoregulation, black bear hibernation, 3D computational modeling and printing and educational uses of virtual reality. In 2002, he was acknowledged as a “Distinguished University Teaching Professor”. Since 1990, he has trained over 200 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and medical students in his laboratories. Dr. Iaizzo, has authored more than 280 original articles, over 100 book chapters, edited 5 books, and is on numerous patents related to medical devices. In 2012, he was named to College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) for "outstanding contributions to research and education in translational systems physiology and cardiovascular engineering". In 2015 he was named a Fellow of the Heart Rhythm Society and in 2016 was made a Senior Fellow of IEEE.