Trayanova students awarded National Research Service Award

Two students in Dr. Natalia Trayanova’s lab have been awarded National Research Service Awards (NRSA) from NHLBI. The fellowships provide up to five years of support for research training.

Hermenegild Arevalo, a fourth-year PhD student, won the award to support his project “Image-based models that predict arrhythmia morphology in post-infarction hearts.” The goal of the project is to examine the ventricular tachycardia reentrant pattern in the infarcted heart and its dependence on the morphology of the infarct scar. Hermenegild was born in Manila, Philippines and earned his BS in Biomedical Engineering from Tulane University.

Jason Constantino’s research project, “Image-based models of electromechanics in normal and failing hearts,” aims to characterize the relation between electrical activation and mechanical contraction in normal and failing hearts under different loading conditions. The new insights gained from this project are expected to ultimately lead to rational optimization of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) delivery and improvement in selection criteria for identifying viable CRT candidates. Jason, who is also a fourth year PhD student, was born in La Puente, CA and earned his BS in Biomedical Engineering from Tulane University.