Finance Committee

Richard A. Chazal, MD, MACC

Rick Chazal is a senior cardiologist and the Medical Director for Quality/Transformation/Innovation for the Lee Health Heart Institute, part of a multi-hospital not-for-profit system in Fort Myers, Florida.  Dr. Chazal is the Past President of the American College of Cardiology.   He has practiced clinical cardiology in Fort Myers since 1983 with expertise in echocardiography, diagnostic catheterization and coronary computerized tomography angiography. During his tenure, he has been a participant in multiple clinical trials.

Chazal received his undergraduate degree from the University of Florida and went on to complete medical school and Internal Medicine training at the University of South Florida.  Subsequently, Chazal completed a fellowship in Cardiovascular Disease at the Krannert Institute of Cardiology at Indiana University, where he spent one year working under Harvey Feigenbaum, MD, FACC as a designated echocardiography fellow.

Chazal served as councillor, treasurer and president of the ACC’s Florida Chapter. Subsequent to his stint as president and governor for the Florida Chapter, he was elected Chair of the ACC Board of Governors.  He has also been ACC Treasurer and Chair of the Budget and Finance Committee. In combined capacities, Chazal has spent thirteen years on the ACC Board of Trustees.  Nationally, Chazal has served as a member and/or chair of over 50 committees and workgroups for the College.

He has been a member of the WHF Board since 2019 and Treasurer since 2023.

He is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha and Omicron Delta Kappa honoraries through the University of South Florida.  He is the recipient of multiple awards from the ACC Florida Chapter, including the Special Achievement Award, the Presidential Citation, the Distinguished Service Award, and the Founder’s Award. In 2011, the Southwest Florida Affiliate of the American Heart Association awarded him their Golden Heart Award, and in 2014 he was designated Distinguished Fellow of the American College of Cardiology. He received the inaugural Community Teaching Award from the Family Medicine Residency Program via Florida State University School of Medicine Fort Myers Program in 2015. The Lee County Medical Society honored Chazal with the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. He serves as Professor of Clinical Sciences, Florida State University School of Medicine.

He and his wife Linda have three children and four grandchildren.

Jagat Narula, MD, PhD, MACC, FRCP is currently the executive vice president and chief academic officer at UTHealth Houston. He works with the six deans and members of the UTHealth Houston leadership team to advance the academic mission and promote excellence in education and research. This includes leading a diverse team of faculty and administrators to oversee strategic planning and implementation of the university’s education and research platform. 

Dr. Narula after completing his cardiology fellowship training and PhD (Cardiovascular Immunology) from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, relocated to Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School in 1989. At MGH, after cardiology, heart failure & transplantation, and nuclear cardiology fellowships and he joined the cardiology faculty. In 1997, he moved to Hahnemann University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, where he was Thomas J. Vischer Professor of Medicine, Chief of the Division of Cardiology, Vice-Chairman of the department of Internal Medicine, and Director of Heart Failure & Transplantation Center. He subsequently joined University of California, Irvine School of Medicine (2003) as Chief of the Division of Cardiology, Associate Dean for Research, and Director of the Cardiovascular Center of the UC Irvine’s Douglas Hospital. He was also the Director of Memorial Heart & Vascular Institute, Long Beach Memorial Hospital, and Medical Director of the Edwards Lifesciences Center for Advanced Cardiovascular Technology in UC Irvine’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering. He moved to Mount Sinai as the Philip J. and Harriet L. Goodhart Chair in Cardiology, and the Director of Cardiovascular Imaging Program in the Mount Sinai’s Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute in 2011.

Dr. Narula has the unique distinction of being able to combine molecular and subcellular pathology and imaging with clinical imaging of the failing myocardium and high-risk coronary atherosclerotic plaques to develop novel strategies for prevention of cardiovascular disease and promotion of cardiovascular health in developed as well as developing countries. He has specifically contributed to two major areas including heart muscle cell apoptosis in heart failure, and lipid-rich atherosclerotic plaques that are susceptible to rupture and acute coronary events. He has brought novel experimental strategies to bedside and defined their applicability at the community level. He is currently actively involved in numerous population-based heart attack prevention programs including HAPPY [Heart Attack Prevention Program for You]. Based on his expertise in global medicine, he serves on the Advisory Council on Global Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences.

His research has been funded, in part, by the grants from National Institutes of Health. He is considered to be a true translationist and one of the infrequent investigators who has distinction of publishing in the best basic science and the best clinical journals including Science, Nature Medicine, PNAS, New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Circulation and JACC. With more than 1000 original research publications or presentations to his credit and more than 35 books or journal supplements edited, Dr. Narula has been awarded as ‘the best young investigator’ on several occasions for his research contributions. His mentoring prowess is exemplified by the fact that 20 of his fellows, working in his research laboratory, have been awarded young investigator awards. He was recently awarded as the Best Educator as also the Innovator in Cardiovascular Medicine by the American College of Cardiology in the year 2012, and was honored as the Master of the American College of Cardiology in March 2013. He has just received the Distinguished Scientist Award 2015 from the American College of Cardiology.

Dr. Mbakwem is a professor of Medicine at the University of Lagos and a consultant cardiologist to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. She completed her residency training in internal medicine and cardiology at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and received a Fellowship of the West African College of Physicians. She underwent further training in cardiology at the Wolfson Heart Institute in Tel Aviv, Israel and Azienda Sanitaria, Tuscany, Italy. Dr Mbakwem’s research interest includes Heart failure, systemic and pulmonary hypertension, heart disease in women, effective communication in disease management and the psychosocial issues in cardiovascular diseases. She is a member of the Nigerian Hypertension society guidelines writing committee. She is a past President of the Nigerian Cardiac Society and a member of the European Society of Cardiology working group on Peripartum cardiomyopathy. She is the current vice president of PASCAR, West Africa region.

Alejandro Ramos Carbajales  is an Independent consultant and researcher in tobacco tax and other health policies, demand for tobacco products, Illicit tobacco trade. Background in the economic evaluation of health policies and reform and cost effective analysis of investment in health infrastructure for the IDB and World Bank as a part-time consultant.