Member profile
Title: Associate Professor, Odense University Hospital, Denmark
Specialist research area: Cardiac surgery, heart valves
Research experience: Associate Professor
Summary: My research includes perspectives of patient-reported outcomes, frailty assessments and optimizations of clinical pathways (including reducing readmissions and health economics) among patients undergoing conventional heart valve surgery.
Also, I have been included in studies related to TAVI-patients, and studies of patients with ischemia. Other research areas include patient involvement, peer support, family perspectives and delirium assessments.
I work as an Associate Professor in a joint position at Odense University Hospital and University of Southern Denmark. As part of my position I supervise PhD students, master students and clinical nurses and allied professionals.
Interested in receiving mentorship: Yes
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: Yes
Email: britt.borrgard@rsyd.dk
Title: Clinical Research Fellow / Senior Lecturer in Cardiac Care, City, University of London, UK.
Specialist research area: Cognitive outcomes following adult cardiac surgery
Research experience: Doctoral
Research summary: I am the recipient of a Barts Charity Nurse / Allied Health Professional Clinical Research Fellowship, and currently a PhD student examining strategies to improve cognitive recovery in patients who have undergone cardiac surgery. My main areas of interest include cognitive recovery after cardiac surgery, and health related quality of life following cardiac surgery.
Interested in receiving mentorship: No
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: No
Email: Tracey.Gibson.1@city.ac.uk
Web: https://www.city.ac.uk/about/people/academics/tracey-bowden-nee-gibson
Title: Assistant Professor, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Specialist research area: Cardiovascular Health Promotion, Risk Factor Management, Chronic Disease Management, Knowledge Translation.
Research experience: My current research interests and program of research is focused on cardiovascular health promotion, including women’s cardiovascular health risks, cardiac rehabilitation post CV surgery, CV risk factor management, chronic disease self-management, advanced practice nursing roles, and knowledge translation.
Interested in receiving mentorship: Yes
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: Yes
Email: jill.bruneau@66@gmail.com
Title: Highly Specialist Physiotherapist, Barts Health NHS, UK
Specialist research area: Critical care; cardiac surgery; aortovascular surgery
Research experience: Pre-doctoral
Summary: Pre-doctoral planning for prehabilitation in cardiac surgery, interested in improving outcomes post-surgery; developing tools to measure postoperative pulmonary complications in cardiac surgery patients and mitigating icu acquired weakness.
Interested in receiving mentorship: No
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: No
Email: samantha.cook20@nhs.net
Title: Associate Professor, Dept of Public Health and Nursing, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway; Nurse Researcher, Dept. of Cardiology and Dept. of Cardiothoracic Surgery, St. Olavs Hospital, Trondheim University Hospital, Norway.
Specialist research area: Cardiothoracic surgery; Postsurgical pain; Cardiovascular nursing
Research experience: Associate Professor
Summary: My main interests are patient-reported outcomes, palliative care, symptoms, and pain in different patient groups emphasizing the trajectory of elderly patients with cardiac disease. I am particularly interested in persistent postsurgical pain after cardiothoracic surgery and have published several papers on this issue.
Interested in receiving mentorship: Yes
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: Yes
Email: h.gjeilo@ntnu.no
Web: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kari-Gjeilo / https://www.ntnu.edu/employees/kari.h.gjeilo
Title: Cardiothoracic CNS, Blackrock Clinic, Ireland
RGN, BNS, MSc (Clinical Practice), RANP, RNP, RNR (Rad), MSc (Advanced Practice), FFNMRCSI, FHFA, Honorary Teaching Associate RCSI, Adjunct Lecturer/Assistant Professor University College Dublin
Specialist research area: Cardiac Surgery & Prevention
Research experience: Pre-doctoral
Summary: Ms Maria Hayes is a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Cardiothoracic surgery at Blackrock Clinic, Dublin. She is currently developing this role into an Advanced Nurse Practitioner position and is a RANP. During the past twenty-five years since qualifying her career pathway has been in the acute cardiac clinical setting.
She is President of the Irish Nurses Cardiovascular Association (INCA). She is the European Nurse representative on the ESC HFA Heart Failure Association Study Group on Valvular Heart Disease. Subjects of interest are Cardiac Surgery and Prevention.
Interested in receiving mentorship: Yes
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: Yes
Email: hayesm2@tcd.ide / maria.hayes1@ucd.ie
Title: Clinical Nurse Specialist, Winnipeg Regional Health Authority
Specialist research area: Post-intensive care syndrome (PICS), congenital care
Research experience: Pre-doctoral
Summary: I am a doctoral student interested in pursuing a nurse clinician scientist role focusing on cardiac critical care and patient-oriented research. My doctoral work is investigating the incidence of PICS post-cardiac surgery, outcomes used to measure PICS, engaging survivors to identify interventions to decrease the incidence of PICS, then implementing at least one of these interventions and measuring the impact on the incidence of PICS.
I am also engaging patients and caregivers in redeveloping the transition pathway from pediatric to adult congenial care.
Other interests include nurse retention, structural procedures, and heart failure.
Interested in receiving mentorship: Yes
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: Yes
Email: e.hyde@sbgh.mb.ca
Title: EMR Research Nurse Consultant and PhD Student, Monash Health, Australia
Specialist research area: Impact of electronic medical record system implementations on nurses and their work
Summary: I am a Critical Care Registered Nurse who previously specialised in Cardiothoracics and am currently completing my PhD. My research interests include nurses’ well-being, cardiothoracic surgery nursing, nurse workforce retention, and electronic medical record system implementations and their effect on nurses and their work.
Research experience: Doctoral (currently completing PhD)
Interested in receiving mentorship: Yes
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: Yes
Email: rebecca.jedwab@monashhealth.org
Title: Associate Dean of Health Research, University of New Brunswick, Canada
Specialist research area: Cardiovascular and Chronic Disease Management
Research experience: Associate Professor
Summary: Dr. Keeping-Burke’s program of research includes the management of adult chronic diseases and treatments, with a focus on cardiac illnesses, mainly cardiac surgery, myocardial infarction, and therapeutic hypothermia. For her doctoral research she investigated the effects of a virtual interactive telehealth home monitoring program on recovery for CABG surgery patients and their caregivers (https://doi.org/10.1002/nur.21571). Currently, she is Director of the UNB Saint John Collaboration for Evidence-Informed Healthcare: A JBI Centre of Excellence for the conduct of systematic reviews.
Interested in receiving mentorship: Yes
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: Yes
Email: l.keeping@unb.ca
Web: https://www.unb.ca/faculty-staff/directory/science-ase-nhs/keeping-burke-lisa.html

Dr Irene Lie. Photo: Ingar Sørensen
Title: Critical Care Nurse, Senior Researcher and Associate Professor II, FESC, Oslo University Hospital and NTNU, Norway
Specialist research area: Follow-up after discharge from hospital. Symptom monitoring. Heart surgery, heart failure and PCI patients.
Research experience: Associate Professor
Summary: As a clinical critical care nurse, head of a research centre and supervisor for master and PhD students in international collaboration, we mainly focus our mixed method studies on follow-up of heart disease (heart surgery, PCI, Heart failure) patients after discharge from hospital. Foremost, symptom monitoring for early intervention, reduce readmissions, PROM, PREM.
In a national (Norway) COVID-19 study on health care professionals (nurses, physicians and leaders) working in ICU we are focusing on preparing for working in COVID-ICU, daily working condition and psychological reactions
Interested in receiving mentorship: Yes
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: Yes
Email: Irene.lie@ous-hf.no
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Title: Clinical Doctoral Research Fellow / Senior Sister, Queen Mary University of London / St Bartholomew’s Hospital, UK
Specialist research area: Cardiac surgery, aortovascular surgery, surgical site infection (SSI), atrial fibrillation (AF)
Research experience: Doctoral
Summary: I am interested on research related to cardiac surgery particularly on aortovascular surgery, AF and SSI after cardiac surgery. I am also interested in doing studies on health-related quality of life and development/validation of risk prediction as well as studies on Marfan syndrome patients.
Interested in receiving mentorship: Yes
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: Yes
Email: r.magboo@qmul.ac.uk
Title: Coordinator Clinical Evidence, National Heart Foundation of Australia
Specialist research area: Gender and women-specific cardiovascular disease
Research experience: Pre-doctoral
Summary: I am interested in health inequities and inequalities that exist between genders and the sexes in the area of cardiac surgery and cardiovascular disease.
Interested in receiving mentorship: Yes
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: Yes
Email: stacey.matthews@heartfoundation.org.au
Title: Advanced Nurse Practitioner - cardiac surgery, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, UK
Specialist research area: Prehabilitation
Research experience: Pre-doctoral and ERAS
Summary: Prehabilitation and optimisation of patients prior to adult care surgery. Introduction of ERAS to improve patient experience and outcomes post operatively.
Interested in receiving mentorship: Yes
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: Yes
Email: jo.murfin@uhs.nhs.uk
Title: Associate Dean of Health Research, Brock University, Canada
Specialist research area: Cardiovascular Pain, Symptom Recognition and Management
Research experience: Associate Professor
Summary: Sheila is a Nurse Scientist at the Centre for Research Across the Life Span and the Brock-Niagara Centre for Health and Wellbeing at Brock University. Sheila’s Heart Innovation Research Program contains three inter-related areas of focus: 1) to examine and describe cardiovascular disease (CVD) related pain and associated symptoms, 2) through the use of digital health technology, design, develop, and evaluate interventions to screen for and/or manage pain and other symptoms and 3) create/provide meaningful education and knowledge mobilization through use of integrated arts-based approaches for research and dissemination.
Interested in receiving mentorship: Yes
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: Yes
Email: sokeefemccarthy@brocku.ca
Web: sokeefemccarthy.ca / https://brocku.ca/applied-health-sciences/nursing/faculty-research/faculty-directory/sheila-okeefe-mccarthy/
Title: Cardiothoracic ICU Nurse, Barts Health NHS Trust, UK
Specialist research area: Cardiothoracic ICU
Research experience: Pre-doctoral
Summary: I am interested in acute and critical care, with special attention for cardiothoracic nursing which is my area of work and competencies.
Interested in receiving mentorship: Yes
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: Yes
Email: dinapaoloni.79@gmail.com
Job title: Professor and Acute Care Nurse Practitioner
Institution: Faculty of Nursing, University of Calgary
Country: Canada
Specialism: Open Heart Surgery, Cardiology
Research areas/interests: Dr. Then’s focus and primary research program is on the development, testing and implementation of surveys and mixed method research. Dr. Then research involves a mixed methods approach (e.g., survey, web surveys, questionnaire development and testing, focus group). She has been involved in numerous research projects including studies related to: risk reduction, acute myocardial infarction, cardiac surgery (valvular, aortic, TAVI and CABG) and quality of life, heart failure and tobacco policy and cessation strategies, triage and on-line learning and data entry. She is presently the PI of a QOL and cognition study in patients 75 years and above undergoing CABG surgery. She also is involved in a CIHR grant with colleagues in the Cummings School of Medicine. She has been a supervisor with numerous students at both Masters, post-Masters NP and doctorate levels.
Interested in receiving mentorship: No
Open to be contacted for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: Yes
Email: kthen@ucalgary.ca
Title: Intensive Care Charge Nurse, Barts Health NHS Trust, UK
Specialist research area: Muscle wasting in critical illness
Research experience: Doctoral
Summary: Muscle wasting post AVR surgery and critical illness. The effects of surgery and critical illness on muscle size, physical function, strength and HRQoL. Currently completing my PhD and in the write up phase.
Interested in receiving mentorship: Yes
Contact for PhD/collaborative research opportunities: Yes
Email: ashleythomas@nhs.net