Natalia Trayanova, MS, PhD
Murray B. Sachs Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine
Joint Appointment in Medicine
Dr. Natalia Trayanova is a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Institute for Computational Medicine, and directs the Computational Cardiology Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Trayanova is the inaugural Murray B. Sachs Endowed Chair in Biomedical Engineering. In 2013, she received the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award for her project “Virtual Electrophysiology Laboratory”. Dr. Trayanova was also the inaugural William R. Brody Faculty Scholar at Johns Hopkins University. She is a Fellow of the Heart Rhythm Society, American Heart Association, Biomedical Engineering Society, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. The translational research in Dr. Trayanova’s Computational Cardiology Laboratory centers around improvement of the clinical therapies of defibrillation and atrial and ventricular ablation, and the risk stratification for arrhythmias using a personalized MRI-based simulation approach. The basic science research in Dr. Trayanova lab focuses on understanding the pathological electrophysiological and electromechanical behavior of the heart, with emphasis on the mechanisms for cardiac arrhythmogenesis and pump dysfunction. Research in Dr. Trayanova’s laboratory is supported by grants from NIH, NSF, and the American Heart Association. Dr. Trayanova has published extensively: she is the author of over 250 peer-reviewed journal publications in prestigious journals (Science Translational Medicine, PNAS, Journal of Clinical Investigations, Nature Communications, Journal of American College of Cardiology, Circulation, Circulation Research, and others). She is the Editor of the book "Cardiac Defibrillation - Mechanisms, Challenges and Implications", InTech Publishing, 2011. Dr. Trayanova has presented at a large number of international meetings and has given numerous keynote and plenary lectures. She and the members of her laboratory are the recipients of a large number of research awards, among which the Excellence in Research and Scholarship Award and Outstanding Researcher Award, and the Fulbright Distinguished Research Award, to name a few. She has also received awards for excellence in teaching. Among her other professional activities, Dr. Trayanova is Associate Editor of the journals Heart Rhythm and Frontiers in Computational Physiology and Medicine; served as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions of Biomedical Engineering; is on the Editorial Board of a number of journals. Dr. Trayanova has served as a member of the NIH ESTA and MABS as well as other study sections. Dr. Trayanova was the Vice-Chair in 2007 and the Chair in 2009 of the Gordon Research Conference on Cardiac Arrhythmia Mechanisms, and has served as a member of the program committee of a large number of international meetings. She currently serves on the FDA CIPA Steering Committee and the American Heart Association Research Funding Subcommittee.
Education
- M.S., Sofia University (Bulgaria) (1982)
- Ph.D., Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Sofia (Bulgaria) (1986)