Kathleen McDowell, a PhD student in the lab of Dr. Natalia Trayanova, was the winner of the Jos Willems Young Investigator Competition at the 2012 International Society for Computerized Electrocardiology (ISCE) meeting, in Birmingham, Alabama.

At the conference, Kathleen presented her recent study, “Investigating the Arrhythmogenic Effects of Atrial Fibrosis in Patient-Specific Models”. The study uses a novel computational model of the human left atrium, constructed from MRI scans of an atrial fibrillation patient. The model incorporates realistic structural and electrophysiological heterogeneity, including accurate fibrotic lesion geometry obtained from late gadolinium enhancement MRI. This model was used to investigate the mechanisms which underlie the breakup of pulmonary vein ectopic waves in the fibrotic atrium.

Congratulations Kathleen!