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Incoming faculty join Yale Cardiovascular Medicine

July 08, 2022
by Elisabeth Reitman

Meet Our New Faculty Members

The Section of Cardiovascular Medicine is proud to welcome new faculty members to the Yale community, with research areas ranging from global health, critical care medicine, structural heart disease, and advanced heart failure.

Tariq Ali, MD, MBA

Tariq Ali, MD, MBA, attended Harvard University where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics. After his undergraduate studies, he worked at the nonprofit Save the Children. Ali enrolled in Brown Medical School in 2009 and subsequently earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. He completed internal medicine and residency training at Perelman School of Medicine. He trained in cardiovascular disease at Tufts University School of Medicine followed by a one-year fellowship in critical care medicine at Mayo Clinic.

Ali co-authored a meta-analysis with Alexander Thomas, MD, Nihar Desai, MD, MPH, and Elliott Miller, MD, MS in The American Journal of Cardiology, which suggests that a history of ischemic heart disease was associated with a higher 60-day and 90-day mortality. Ali joins the Yale faculty August 1 as an assistant professor, where his primary focus will be optimizing the care of critically ill cardiac patients.


Carlos D. Davila, MD

Carlos D. Davila, MD, attended medical school Central University of Venezuela followed by internal medicine and residency training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He pursued subsequent training in interventional cardiology and advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology through the Robert TV Kung Interventional Heart Failure Fellowship Program at Tufts University School of Medicine. Afterwards, Davila enrolled in Harvard Medical School’s structural fellowship program.

Davila’s latest study which was published in the journal Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, identified a new potential marker of mortality among patients with cardiogenic shock. He joins the Yale faculty September 22 as an assistant professor.


Sarah A. Goldstein, MD

Sarah A. Goldstein, MD, graduated from the University of Virginia. She attended medical school at the University of North Carolina. She subsequently completed her internship and residency training Duke University followed by a fellowship in cardiovascular disease and advanced subspecialty training in cardio-obstetrics and adult congenital heart disease. At Duke, Goldstein worked at a multispecialty clinic for high-risk pregnancies.

In the Methodist DeBakey Cardiovascular Journal, Goldstein proposed a specialized training pathway focused on cardio-obstetrics. She joined the faculty July 1 as an assistant professor.


Norrisa Haynes, MD, MPH

Norrisa Haynes, MD, MPH, received a bachelor’s degree in molecular and cellular biology from Yale University. Haynes completed her medical school and internal medicine and residency training at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. During medical school, Haynes earned a Master of Public Health from Harvard University. After residency, she worked for Partners in Health in Haiti at Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais as a junior attending. During those two years, she also worked as a Harvard Medical School instructor and Brigham hospitalist. After spending time in Haiti, she started a cardiology fellowship at Perelman School of Medicine and obtained a Master of Science in Health Policy at Perelman School of Medicine.

Haynes has published extensive research addressing racial and ethnic health disparities, notably SHARP: Safe Haircuts As We Reopen Philadelphia, a community-based initiative between barbershop owners and medical providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. She joins the Yale faculty August 1 as an assistant professor.


Marc Samsky, MD

Marc Samsky, MD, is a graduate of Duke University and Duke University School of Medicine. He completed an internal medicine internship and residency at Duke University School of Medicine. In 2017-2018, he served as chief resident at the Durham VA Medical Center. He completed his fellowship training in cardiovascular disease and advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology. He joined the Yale faculty on July 1 as an assistant professor, where he will focus on the management of patients with advanced heart failure.

As the lead investigator for the Exenatide Study of Cardiovascular Event Lowering (EXSCEL) trial, Samsky examined the long-term risks of death, heart attack, hospitalization, and stroke in patients with type 2 diabetes. At Duke, Samsky received the Joseph R. McClellan Award for Excellence in Teaching and Patient Care and the Eugene A. Stead Student Research Scholar award.

Sounok Sen, MD, and Samsky co-authored an editorial in the journal JACC: Heart Failure on the side effects of the medication sacubitril/valsartan.


Evgeny Shkolnik, MD

Evgeny Shkolnik, MD, joined the section as an instructor on July 1. Shkolnik earned his medical degree at the Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry. He completed internal medicine and residency training at Yale New Haven Health Bridgeport Hospital.

Shkolnik and colleagues at Bridgeport Hospital published a case report in the journal Oxford Medical Case Reports, which demonstrates the use of focused cardiac ultrasound to diagnose a paradoxical embolism in a 63-year-old patient with COVID-19.


Nikhil Sikand, MD

Nikhil Sikand, MD, specializes in cardiac transplant, mechanical support, cardiac critical care, medical education, and clinical decision making. He earned his medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine in 2013. Sikand completed internal medicine and residency training at the Yale School of Medicine. He later served as chief clinic fellow at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, where he enrolled in cardiovascular disease and advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology fellowships.

While at NYU, Sikand wrote an op-ed on the importance of physician empathy and key non-verbal behaviors that may benefit trainees. He joined the Yale faculty on July 1 as an assistant professor.


Instructors Promoted to Assistant Professors

Christopher Maulion, MD, and Karthik Murugiah, MBBS, have been promoted to the rank of assistant professor.

Christopher Maulion, MD

Christopher Maulion, MD, specializes in the treatment of patients with cardiomyopathy. At Yale, he spearheaded a multi-site clinical trial involving new procedure, donation after cardiac death or DCD.

“By being one of the few centers in the country that can offer DCD heart transplantation, Yale is in the position to offer transplants to more patients who may not have had the opportunity otherwise,” said Maulion.

Maulion earned a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University in genetics. He trained at New York University School of Medicine where he also completed internal medicine and residency training. He returned to Rutgers in 2015 for cardiology fellowship before joining Yale for subspeciality training in advanced heart failure and transplant, which he completed in 2019. He initially joined the Yale School of Medicine faculty as an instructor in 2019 and currently serves as a reviewer with the Journal of Cardiac Failure.



Karthik Murugiah, MBBS

Karthik Murugiah, MBBS, is an interventional cardiologist who specializes in complex coronary and vascular interventions as well as non-surgical procedures including alcohol septal ablation and balloon pulmonary angioplasty. Murugiah attended medical school at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, in New Delhi. He subsequently completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Jacobi Medical Center, followed by a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship at Yale’s Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE).

Murugiah completed fellowships in cardiovascular medicine and interventional cardiology at Yale New Haven Hospital. He was appointed as an instructor at Yale School of Medicine in 2019 and serves as a member of the Yale New Haven Hospital Heart and Vascular Center Cath Lab Performance Improvement Committee.

Murugiah’s research interests include comparative effectiveness of cardiovascular interventions, leveraging electronic health record (EHR) and large datasets to develop prediction models, and evaluating changes in health and health care delivery for cardiovascular patients in the U.S. and globally. His work is supported in part by a K08 career development award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Murugiah is also involved in the development and maintenance of performance measures for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.


Fellows Promoted to Assistant Professors

Five clinical fellows join Yale Cardiovascular Medicine as newly promoted faculty members. They include a Teach for American alumnus, an American College of Cardiology Young Author Achievement Award recipient, a physician-scientist at the Yale Cardiovascular Research Center, a graduate of the Wharton MBA program, and a recipient of the Tom Steinberg Award for excellence in research.


“At Yale Cardiovascular Medicine we investigate novel solutions, create new areas of research in cardiovascular medicine, and inspire future generations of clinicians. Our newest faculty members share our commitment towards clinical excellence and academic performance,” said Eric J. Velazquez, MD, Robert W. Berliner Professor of Medicine and chief of Yale Cardiovascular Medicine.