People

Aaron grew up in NYC and on Long Island, NY. He went to Case Western Reserve University for his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering, then he returned to Long Island for medical school at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. There, he dedicated a year to doing clinical outcomes research in various areas of cardiac surgery, with focus in aortic diseases and TAVRs. His cardiac surgical interests include heart failure and mechanical circulatory support devices, as well as aspects of aortic surgery. During his free time, Aaron enjoys traveling, working out, and practicing his newly acquired skill of cooking.

Raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, Clancy attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for his undergraduate degrees in Chemistry (Biochemistry, Honors and Distinction) and Traditional Mathematics. While there, he worked in the Department of Genetics under Dr. Mark Heise, studying non-coding complementary strand transcription products of alphaviruses and working on validating a methodology of producing sequence independent cDNA libraries from multiple RNA viruses. He then attended the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. While a student, he studied the role of nicotinic signaling in mitochondrial membrane preservation during ischemic preconditioning with Dr. Kaie Ojamaa. He was selected for Alpha Omega Alpha and received the 2018 graduation award from the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. Since joining the Yale Integrated Thoracic Surgery program, he has produced numerous outcomes research publications using institutional, national, and international databases. He completed his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2024 under the mentorship of Dr. Jordan Pober, the Bayer Professor of Translational Medicine and Vice Chair of Immunobiology. He studied alloreactivity, microRNA-mediated regulation of endothelial cytokine expression, and novel nucleotide-based polymeric nanoparticle modification of endothelial cells and ex vivo perfused organs. He plans to pursue a career in surgical heart failure. He was awarded the 2024 Yale Department of Surgery Surgeon-Scientist Training Program to continue his translational science program, focused on the description and elimination of endothelial co-stimulatory molecules, while completing his clinical training. In 2025, he received the Frank C Detterbeck Resident Teaching Award from the Divisions of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery. He plans to pursue a career in advanced heart failure.

Born and raised in Huntsville, Alabama, Alan attended Dartmouth College and received undergraduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics. He subsequently attended the University of Pennsylvania for medical school and is currently a resident in the integrated cardiothoracic residency program. During residency, he spent two years in the labs of Drs. Roland Assi and George Tellides and earned a Masters of Health Science degree. He plans to pursue a career in academic cardiac surgery with a focus on complex aortic surgery.

Irbaz Hameed, MD, is an integrated cardiothoracic surgery resident at Yale and a Ph.D. candidate in Investigative Medicine - Neurocardiology at the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (Sestan Lab). He received his early education in various West African countries and earned his medical degree from Southeast University, China. He subsequently completed a cardiothoracic surgery fellowship at NewYork-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Hameed has presented at several national and international conferences and authored over 130 peer-reviewed publications, including book chapters and high-impact articles in Nature, The Lancet, JAMA, European Heart Journal, Circulation, and JACC. He is the recipient of multiple awards and serves in various editorial roles, including associate editor, guest editor, editorial board member and reviewer for multiple clinical and basic/translational science journals in cardiovascular medicine. His translational research is focused on neurocardiology, with a particular emphasis on the heart-brain axis and organ recovery after warm ischemia, utilizing single-cell and spatial multi-omics profiling technologies in live porcine models. His clinical research is centered on cardiac surgical outcomes, as well as the methodologies of randomized controlled trials, observational studies, and meta-analyses. Dr. Hameed is currently the vice-president of the North American Thoracic Surgery Residents’ Association and holds positions in various workforces and councils within the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the American Association for Thoracic Surgery. He is also the past president of the Yale Residents’ and Fellows’ Senate.

Dr. Best hails from rural Maine and graduated from Yale University as a member of the Lightweight Crew (Y150) with a BA in Linguistics. During this time, he volunteered in the laboratory of Drs. Christopher Breuer and Toshiharu Shinoka (Vascular Biology and Therapeutics Program) where he dedicated his efforts to the development of a tissue-engineered vascular graft. He followed the laboratory to Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, OH to support an FDA-approved clinical trial evaluating the graft as a Fontan conduit in patients with congenital heart disease. He earned a PhD in Biomedical Science from the Ohio State University and co-founded Lyst Therapeutics, LLC which developed novel immunomodulatory therapies to facilitate tissue engineering in the pediatric population. He then graduated from the Ohio State University College of Medicine. He is honored to return to Yale as a member of the Integrated Cardiothoracic Residency Program and aims toward a career as a surgeon-scientist, continuing the translation of tissue-engineered solutions to the field of congenital heart surgery.