CVRI Research Day 2026

RESEARCH DAY 2026 WAS A GREAT SUCCESS!

Thank you to everyone who participated in and supported our 2026 CVRI Research Day. This year’s event was another success, and it was a pleasure to welcome faculty, trainees, staff and guests for an engaging and inspiring day of scientific exchange and collaboration.

CVRI Research Day continues to be an important opportunity for our community to come together, showcase new discoveries, celebrate achievements, and highlight the exceptional cardiovascular research taking place across our institute. This year’s event brought together a total of 265 participants.

We were honored to welcome Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, an internationally celebrated researcher and one of Canada’s most influential clinician scientists from the University of Montreal, as our guest speaker. We were also pleased to feature presentations from our faculty members – Dr. Carla Prado and Dr. Arnav Agarwal, who shared exciting developments and innovative work taking place within our centre.

Throughout the day, trainees delivered 12 oral presentations, alongside more than 50 poster presentations. The program highlighted the remarkable depth and diversity of research across CVRI, showcasing a broad range of preclinical, translational, and clinical work.

Research Day also provided an opportunity to recognize and celebrate the many accomplishments of our faculty and trainees through a number of awards. These included awards for best oral and poster presentations in both preclinical and clinical categories, as well as recognition of runners-up in each category. The Witkowski Publication Award for a trainee was also presented, along with CVRI grants awarded to a faculty member and to graduate students through competitive processes that started over the preceding months. We also recognized recipients of two additional awards presented by the Division of Cardiology in support of cardiology residents.

Congratulations to all of this year’s award recipients! Your dedication, innovation, and commitment to advancing cardiovascular research continue to strengthen our community and inspire future discoveries. All the award recipients and their photos are featured below.

Research Day 2026 Full Program

Celebrating Our Contributors

We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the following individuals.

Session Chairs

Drs. Graham, Kassiri, McAlister, and Sutendra

Poster Judges

Drs. Tardif, Graham, Kassiri, Sutendra, Dyck, Ussher, Gouda, McMurtry, McAlister, and Jickling

Abstract and Poster Reviewers

Drs. Graham, Sutendra, Jickling, Kassiri, Dyck, Ussher, Gouda, McMurtry, McAlister, Wiens, Proctor, Neufeld, Ezekowitz, Pearson, Davidge, Van Diepen, Osman, Prado, and Windram

Award Presenters

Drs. Dyck, Gouda, and Irene Mickel

Volunteers

Hsiu Wei, Swikriti Gautam, and Lily Chen (all U of A students)

And to all attendees whose contributions helped make this event such a success. Your continued engagement and support are deeply appreciated.

We look forward to another exciting year of collaboration, discovery, and continued growth across our CVRI community.