SCCT Leadership Named to Thomson Reuters' List of "The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds: 2014 

Vienna, VA (October 16, 2014) - Several Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT) leadership members have been named to Thomson Reuters' list of "The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds: 2014", including Dr. Stephan Achenbach, Dr. Daniel S. Berman, Dr. Matthew J. Budoff, and Dr. Leslee J. Shaw.

The list includes over 3,000 scientists from around the world, with their ranking based on how frequently their research discoveries have been cited by peers in the past decade. The list was compiled from two separate Thomson Reuters studies analyzed for publication and citation data from 21 broad fields of study, ranging from chemistry to social sciences. The researchers included in the list publish work that ranks among the top 1% most cited for their subject field and year of publication, and can be distinguished as recognized by their peers for particular significance and utility in their fields.

All of the recognized SCCT leaders have helped establish SCCT from its inception, serving in various positions on the Executive Board, as chairs and members of SCCT's educational committees, and as faculty members for SCCT's annual scientific sessions and training courses.

Dr. Stephan Achenbach is currently the Chairman of the Department of Cardiology at the University of Erlangen in Germany. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cardiovascular CT (JCCT). Dr. Achenbach served as the President of SCCT from 2005 to 2007, has served on the Executive Board as Secretary, and he currently serves as the Member Liaison officer. He has published more than 150 scientific papers on these topics in peer-reviewed journals. His research interests include cardiac imaging by magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography with a special focus on non-invasive imaging of the coronary arteries.

Dr. Daniel S. Berman is Chief of Cardiac Imaging and Nuclear Cardiology at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and the S. Mark Taper Foundation Imaging Center. He also serves as Medical Director of the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Program at Cedars-Sinai as well as Cedars-Sinai's Biomedical Imaging Research Institute. Dr. Berman served as President of SCCT from 2008 to 2009, and is an associate editor of the JCCT, in which he has published many original research, guideline and review articles. He has served on several other journal boards, and has authored more than 500 original manuscripts, written 110 book chapters and edited or co-edited five books. His current studies are exploring clinical applications of cardiac PET, SPECT, cardiac CT and cardiovascular MR, as well as developing automated computer-based methods for evaluating medical images.

Dr. Matthew J. Budoff is a Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and is the Director of Cardiac CT at Los Angeles Biomedical Research Center at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California. He served as President of SCCT from 2010 to 2011, and he is an author of the "Guidelines for Use of CT for Calcium Assessment" and the competency guidelines for peripheral CT and MR. He has edited three textbooks on Cardiac CT. Dr. Budoff has conducted extensive research over the last nineteen years using cardiac CT to identify those patients at high-risk for cardiac events, progression of coronary calcium, and non-invasive CT angiography. He has published over 250 articles, book chapters and books on these topics.

Dr. Leslee J. Shaw is a Professor of Medicine at Emory University, and is an outcome research scientist with research interests in test accuracy, risk assessment, prognosis, clinical outcome evaluation, and cost efficiency with a particular emphasis on the role of diagnostic testing in special populations including gender and ethnic/racial differences in risk detection. Dr. Shaw is a past-president of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology and currently serves as the Vice-President for SCCT. In total, Dr. Shaw has published over 400 publications and presented more than 300 abstracts in major scientific meetings in the US, Europe, Australia, and South America.

About the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography

(SCCT) is the professional society devoted exclusively to cardiovascular computed tomography (CCT). It is acknowledged and recognized as the representative and advocate for research, education, and clinical excellence in the use of cardiovascular computed tomography. For more information on the society's mission and goals, please see the SCCT Website at www.SCCT.org