ECLS | ECMO | Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation
SOC Members
Adeel Abbasi, MD, ScM
Adeel Abbasi, MD, ScM, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary,
Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at Brown University. His work in the Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory at Brown University’s Center for Biomedical Informatics aims to
improve patient outcomes by leveraging bioinformatics techniques including machine learning
to address crucial knowledge gaps in mechanical circulatory support, including
extracorporeal life support.
Peta Alexander, MDN
I am an Australian-trained Pediatric Cardiologist and Intensive Care Physician working at
Boston Children's Hospital, MA, USA. I am the Director of Cardiac ECMO and MCS with a focus
on optimizing potential circulatory support strategies for patients with congenital and
acquired heart disease. I am Treasurer of the Board of Directors of the Extracorporeal Life
Support Organization (ELSO), Co-Chair of PediECMO (a PALISI-ELSO Collaborative), and
contribute to a number of other professional organizations. In my clinical
practice, I strive for program-wide excellence in inter-disciplinary, goal-concordant,
family-centered care
Marc Anders
Dr. Marc Anders is an Adult and Pediatric Critical Care Physician at Texas Children’s
Hospital, Houston, TX, USA. He is board certified in Anesthesiology and Critical Care in
Europe, and furthermore Pediatric Critical Care in Australia. He strives to deliver the best
clinical care for every individual patient, based on evidence and experience. His primary
research interest is Mechanical Circulatory Support including Extracorporeal Membrane
Oxygenation and Ventricular Assist Devices.
manders@elso.org
Pilar Anton-Martin, MD,PhD
Dr. Anton-Martin, MD PhD is a US board-certified pediatric cardiac intensivist with
international training in neonatology, ECMO, pediatric intensive care, and pediatric cardiac
intensive care. She is an avid ECMO researcher and scientific journal reviewer. Dr.
Anton-Martin’s main research interests include extubation practices, anticoagulation,
nutrition, and renal replacement therapies during ECMO support. In her clinical practice,
she strives to provide excellent medical care with compassion and respect, advance
scientific knowledge and medical education, and support access to medicine for all people in
the world.
Matteo Di Nardo, MD
Dr Matteo Di Nardo is a pediatric intensivist in Children’s Hospital Bambino Gesù of Rome,
Italy. From 2013, he is responsible of the respiratory ECMO program in the same hospital. He
is also the coordinator of the neonatal and pediatric ECMO transport system in the center
and south of Italy on behalf of the Italian Ministry of Health. From 2014 he is an active
member of the EuroELSO Steering Committee.
matteo.dinardo@opbg.net
Jamie Furlong-Dillard, DO
Dr. Furlong-Dillard is board certified in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine and works in the
Cardiac and Pediatric Intensive Care Units at Norton Children's Hospital with the University
of Louisville. She is the ICU ECMO director and the critical care fellowship primary
research mentor with research focus on ECMO outcomes, cardiac nutrition, safety and outcomes
surrounding intubations, and ECMO simulation. She is actively involved in PediECMO and is
the current conference chair and reviews journals for ASAIO, Perfusion and Cardiology in the
Young. In her clinical practice she strives to provide compassionate care and is passionate
about education and teaching.
jamie.furlong-dillard@louisville.edu
Wilson Grandin, MD, MPH, MEd
Dr. Wilson Grandin is an Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiologist at Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston and a faculty member at Harvard Medical School.
He is the medical director of ECMO and Temporary Mechanical Circulatory Support at BIDMC.
Dr. Grandin specializes in the care of patients with advanced heart failure, particularly
those requiring advanced therapies such as heart transplantation and durable left
ventricular assist device, and patients with cardiogenic shock. His clinical research has
focused on management strategies and outcomes in patients requiring temporary and durable
mechanical circulatory support.
Andrew Hadley-Brown, RN
Having trained in Adult Nursing at King's College London, Andrew is an ECMO Specialist for
the ECMO Retrieval Service and Critical Care Area at Royal Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, UK.
Previous research areas include pre-stabilisation in the transport of critically unwell
adults, and the role of mechanical support pre/post organ transplantation.
andrew.hadley-brown@nhs.net
Aparna Hoskote
Dr Aparna Hoskote is a Paediatric Cardiac Intensivist in Great Ormond Street Hospital for
Children NHS Foundation Trust and Honorary Associate Professor, UCL Institute of
Cardiovascular Science, London, UK - a nationally commissioned centre for ECLS,
cardiothoracic transplantation and ventricular assist devices. She is the deputy chair of
the EuroELSO Scientific Committee and the chair of the EuroELSO Working Group on
Neurological Monitoring and Outcome. She is currently the chair of the Cardiac ICU &
Mechanical Circulatory Support section in the European Society of Paediatric and Neonatal
Intensive Care (ESPNIC). She is committed to exemplary clinical care, international
collaboration and outcomes research in children on ECLS.
ahoskote@elso.org
Ramanathan K. R
Dr. Ramanathan K. R is an Adult Cardiac Intensivist at the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit
at the National University Heart Centre, Singapore. He had his specialty training in Cardiac
Anesthesiology from India and is trained in Intensive Care Medicine from Brisbane,
Australia. He is currently the Program Director for the ICU Fellowship as well as the
Advanced Fellowship Training Programes at NUH, Singapore. Dr. Ramanathan is closely
associated with the National ECMO Services Workgroup at the Ministry of Health in Singapore.
He also leads the courses workgroup at the ECMO education Committee at the Extracorporeal
Life Support Organization.
ramanathan@elso.org
Jumana Yusuf Haji, MD
Experience with setting up the ECMO protocols with ELSO registration in two Indian centres at
Aster CMI hospital Bangalore and HN Reliance Hospital Mumbai. Currently the ECMO program
director at Fortis hospitals Mumbai with core focus to develop and support ECMO programs
across institutes in rural and urban centers and support advanced critical care requirements
of heart lung transplant patients. Specialize in awake and ambulatory ECMO, Ecmo as bridge
to transplant and in use of ECMO for organ donation(OP ECMO and NRP). Publications on Awake
ECMO (journal of cardiovascular thoracic surgery), ECMO in organ donation and ECMO in liver
transplant recipients (textbook of anaesthesia for liver transplantation) and on setting up
new ECMO PROGRAMS (RED BOOK 6 th edition chapter).
ecmo@drjumana.in
Max Malfertheiner, MD
Maximilian Malfertheiner is currently the Medical Director of the Lung Center Donaustauf,
Germany. As a specialist for respiratory and intensive care medicine he is affiliated with
the ECMO center of the University hospital Regensburg, Germany. Dr. Malfertheiner carried
out a research fellowship at Yale University, New Haven, USA in 2007 and in 2017 he was
working with the Critical Care Research Group at the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane,
Australia with Prof. J. Fraser. Dr. Malfertheiner is speaker of the work group on Innovation
on ECMO and ECLS of the EuroELSO. His work there is focused on new strategies on
anticoagulation in ECMO therapy and clinical application of ECCO2R. Dr. Malfertheiner is a
founding member of the European ECMO Advisory Board.
Jamie McElrath Schwartz, MD
Jamie McElrath Schwartz is an Assistant Professor of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine
and Pediatrics. She is a Co-Director of the Blalock-Taussig-Thomas Pediatric and Congenital
Heart Center and Division Chief of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins School
of Medicine. Dr. McElrath Schwartz's clinical practice is as a pediatric cardiac
anesthesiologist and intensivist with focus on ECLS and perioperative care of critically ill
children
jamie.schwartz@jhmi.edu
Meng Li, PhD
Dr. Meng Li is an expert in many areas of modern
statistics and the Noah Harding Assistant Professor of Statistics at Rice University, Houston,
TX, USA. His research focuses on structured high-dimensional and nonparametric inference on
complex data, variable selection, Bayesian inference, and quantile regression. He closely
collaborates with medical experts, and is committed to reproducible and interpretable data
analysis methods with statistical rigor. He has been serving as an Associate Editor for the
journal Bayesian Analysis since 2019.
meng@rice.edu
Jamel Ortoleva, MD
I am a Cardiothoracic Anesthesiologist and Intensivist at Tufts Medical Center. After
completing my Medical School training at Columbia University, I completed residency in
Anesthesiology at Yale New Haven Hospital, my Intensive Care Fellowship at Massachusetts
General Hospital, and my Cardiothoracic Anesthesia Fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center.
I both cannulate and manage Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Support
at Tufts Medical Center. My interests include mechanical circulatory support, right
ventricular failure, echocardiography, resuscitation, and novel therapeutics and diagnostics
for vasoplegia. I have several ongoing research projects in these areas and collaborate on a
multi-institutional level.
jamilpo@gmail.com
Erika O’Neil, MD
Erika O’Neil is a Pediatric and ECMO intensivist in San Antonio, Texas. She practices
neonatal, pediatric, cardiac and adult ECMO. She is currently the Brooke Army Medical Center
ECMO Process Improvement Director and is a member of the United States Air Force Critical
Care Air Transport team, transporting ECMO patients world-wide.
erika.oneil.md@gmail.com
Angelo Polito, MD
Head, Pediatric Intensive Care and Pediatric Extracorporeal Life Support Program, Geneva
Children’s Hospital, Switzerland. Affiliated with The Geneva University Hospital,
Switzerland. I have been working as a senior consultant in the field of peri-operative care
of children with congenital heart diseases and ECMO services for the last 18 years, mainly
at the Bambino Gesu’ Children’s Hospital in Italy, the largest paediatric hospital in Italy.
During my fellowship at Children’s Hospital Boston I developed a deep interest in clinical
research. I also earned a Master in Public Health degree at Harvard University that allowed
me to sharpen my knowledge in the field of epidemiology. Since January 2021 I am the
coordinator of the extracorporeal life support program at the Geneva Children’s Hospital.
My main research interests are clinical outcomes in pediatric patients after cardiac
surgery or ECMO support with special interest in neurodevelopmental outcomes in pediatric
patients after ECMO support and ethical issues in pediatric cardiac surgery/ECMO support. In
addition to ELSO, I am actively participating in ESPNIC activities.
John Priest, BSRT RRT-NPS
John Priest is an ECMO Specialist II at Boston Children’s Hospital. He is also a Registered
Respiratory Therapist and a neonatal pediatric specialist. His primary research interests
related to Extracorporeal Life support is anticoagulation, mechanical ventilation, and
quality improvement of congenital diaphragmatic hernia care. John is also active with the
American Association for Respiratory Care, ELSO Database Development Committee, PediECMO
Steering Committee, and is the Co-Chair of Boston Children’s Hospital Dissemination Council.
john.priest@childrens.harvard.edu
Aniket Rali, MD
Dr. Aniket Rali is an advanced heart failure and transplantation and critical care medicine
physician at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, USA. He is boarded in
advanced heart failure, critical care medicine, and echocardiography. His academic interests
include critical care cardiology, with a focus on cardiovascular haemodynamics, advanced
heart failure and mechanical circulatory support and cardiac transplantation.
aniket.rali@vumc.org
Twitter: @aniket_rali
Lakshmi Raman, MD
Dr. Lakshmi Raman is a pediatric intensivist and currently the Medical Director of the
Pediatric and Neonatal ECLS program at Dallas Children’s Medical Center in Dallas Texas, an
ELSO center of Excellence. Dr. Raman is currently the chair of the Publications committee at
ELSO. Dr. Raman’s research interest is, understanding neurological injuries on ECMO. Dr.
Raman has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and currently directs an
educational course to teach ECLS in Dallas, Texas
Ravi Thiagarajan, MBBS,MPH
Ravi Thiagarajan MBBS, MPH is a cardiac intensivist at Boston Children’s Hospital. He has
extensive clinical experience and is well published in ECMO. He served as the registry
co-chair 2009 – 2015. His interest include ECMO use in Congenital Heart Disease, ECPR, and
long-term outcomes for ECMO survivors.
ravi.thiagarajan@cardio.chboston.org
Jordi Riera, PhD
I’m Jordi Riera, adult critical care physician at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in
Barcelona, Spain. I’m the adult ECMO Program Director at this institution, tutor of ICU
residents, PhD (cum laude & extraordinary award at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and PI
of several investigations on ECMO, lung transplant and respiratory infectious diseases
(ORCID: 0000-0002-1738-4448).I’m part of the EuroELSO Steering Committee and Director of
several national & international ECMO SIM-based training courses.
Our critically ill patients deserve the best care we can offer. To achieve this, we need
solid training, well-coordinated worldwide collaboration and high-quality research, three of
the main missions of ELSO, the organization of ECMO excellence.
jordi.rieradelbrio@vallhebron.cat
Twitter: @jrdelbrio
Peter Rycus, MPH
Peter Rycus is the executive director of ELSO and has been highly involved in the registry
for over 25 years.
Peter Schellongowski, MD
Dr. Peter Schellongowski is a Medical Intensivist and Associate Professor of Medicine at the
Medical University of Vienna, Austria. His clinical and scientific focus are critically ill
hemato-oncologic and other immunosuppressed patients as well as ARDS management including
extracorporeal gas exchange techniques. He is co-founder and co-coordinator of the
Austrian-German initiative ‘Intensive Care in Haematologic and Oncologic Patients (iCHOP)’.
Along with co-coordinating the ‘Registry for Critically Ill Cancer Patients of the iCHOP
Initiative’ he also heads the ESICM-endorsed YELENNA Study of the ‘Caring for critically ill
immunocompromised patients (Nine-I)’ study group on cancer patients with ARDS. He currently
serves on the Euro ELSO Scientific Committee, where he coordinates the newly established
webinar program.
peter.schellongowski@meduniwien.ac.at
Neel Shah, MD
Dr. Neel Shah is a pediatric intensivist at Washington University/St. Louis Children’s. His
academic interests include data science and the use of machine learning in predicting ECMO
outcomes. Clinically he is also interested in pediatric acute respiratory distress syndrome
(pARDS)
Neel.Shah@wustl.edu
Kiran Shekar, MBBS, FCICM, FCCCM, PhD
Kiran Shekar is a Senior Intensive Care Specialist and Director of Research at the Prince
Charles Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. He holds academic appointments as Adjunct
Professor at Queensland University of Technology and Associate Professor at University of
Queensland.
Shekar is passionate about addressing the global variability in intensive care and
extracorporeal life support (ECLS) outcomes through innovation, research, and education. His
research interests include pathophysiology of cardiorespiratory failure and ECLS. His
ongoing research program “The No Tube Project” aims to integrate less invasive respiratory
supports with ECLS to provide more personalized respiratory support and to minimise the
burden of invasive mechanical ventilation.
Shekar is an active contributor to the Extracorporeal Life Support Organisation (ELSO)
through his research and educational engagements. He is a member of the Asia-Pacific ELSO
Education Committee and is the Course Director of an ELSO endorsed ECMO course. He is the
research lead for ELSO Education Taskforce (ELSOed) and as a member of the scientific
committee of the International ECMO Network, he contributes to global collaborative research
in ECMO.
kiran.shekar@health.qld.gov.au
Sung-Min Cho, DO, MHS
Dr. Sung-Min Cho is an Assistant Professor of Neurology, Surgery, Anesthesia, and Critical
Care Medicine. He joined the Johns Hopkins Division of Neuroscience Critical Care in 2019 as
a faculty. Dr. Cho specializes in neurointensive care. He is the Director of Adult ECMO
Research in the Division of Cardiac Surgery at Johns Hopkins. His research focus includes
neurology and neurocritical care of cardiovascular disease, especially in patients with
mechanical circulatory support devices.
csungmi1@jhmi.edu
Joseph Tonna, MD, MS
Dr. Joseph Tonna, MD, MS, FCCM, FACEP, FAAEM, is an Associate Professor with Tenure at the
University of Utah with appointments in the Divisions of Cardiothoracic Surgery and
Emergency Medicine. He is the Section Head of Cardiothoracic Critical Care, Medical Director
of the Cardiovascular ICU/Cardiothoracic Critical Care, and the Associate Director of
Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) Services. He works as an Attending Physician in
the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Units and in the Emergency Department. He is funded by the
National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
His clinical and research interests include extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO),
extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR), delirium prevention, and enhancing
sleep and mobility.
jtonna@elso.org