Carlos Mery, MD, MPH, joined VUMC in October 2024 as the new chief of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, succeeding David Bichell, MD. He was previously associate chief of Pediatric and Congenital Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Texas Center for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease, a collaboration between UT Health Austin and Dell Children’s Medical Center. 

Mery specializes in the management of children and adults with congenital heart disease, including simple and complex congenital heart defects. His passion is to help every patient with congenital heart disease have access to high-quality, comprehensive and personalized care.

In Texas, Mery, who has an extensive background in congenital heart surgery and research, has emphasized the importance of personalized medicine and patient-centric care by helping create an integrated heart center, robust data infrastructure and psychosocial support for patients and families. Among his many roles there, he has served as a professor in the departments of Surgery and Perioperative Care and Pediatrics, and the director of health transformation and design in congenital heart disease.

Mery received his medical degree from Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico, and subsequently completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Instituto Nacional de la Nutrición “Salvador Zubirán” in Mexico, and a research fellowship in thoracic surgery and clinical junior fellowship in cardiac surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He completed his general surgery residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, cardiothoracic fellowship at University of Virginia and congenital heart surgery fellowship at Texas Children’s Hospital/Baylor College of Medicine. Mery holds a master’s degree in public health from Harvard School of Public Health as well as a fellowship in surgical innovation from Stanford University. 

QiPing Feng, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Department of Medicine, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Dr. Feng received her bachelor’s degree from Wuhan University and Ph.D. degree from Peking Union Medical College & Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (PUMC & CAMS) in China. She joined Vanderbilt University Medical Center as a research fellow, and then was promoted to Research Instructor and Research Assistant Professor. In 2017, her appointment was transferred to the tenure track as an Assistant Professor of Medicine.

Dr. Feng’s research focuses on the genetic analysis of lipid-lowering drugs (statins, PCSK9 inhibitors, etc.) in the context of drug outcome, pleiotropic effects, and related clinical phenotypes. Her contribution to the genetic analysis of clinical phenotypes includes defining the genetics of statin response determined from BioVU (Clinical Pharmacology Therapeutics 2013, Pharmacogenomics J 2016); identifying LPA as a predictor for residual CVD risk while on statins (Circulation 2018); elucidating the relationship between low LDL-C levels and clinical phenotypes—such as type 2 diabetes and sepsis (PLoS Med 2018, JAMA network OPEN 2019); and understanding the pleiotropy effects of statin drugs using Mendelian randomization (MR) and Phenome-wide association (PheWAS) approach (JAMA network OPEN 2021). Dr. Feng has been funded by NIH since 2016. She has authored or co-authored more than 60 publications.

Mihir Vaidya is an Application Developer at the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He joined the department on Jan. 13, 2025. With a Master's Degree in Computer Science from Indiana University Bloomington, he specializes in building innovative, scalable applications and integrating AI/ML solutions to drive impactful outcomes in healthcare and technology.

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Lynda Christel joined DBMI as Chief Business Officer on Jan. 13, 2025. Previously, Lynda worked as an Operations Administrator within the Departments of Neurosurgery and Neurology and was an Assistant Professor in Healthcare Administration at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. As a healthcare executive, Lynda enhanced revenue through practice optimization, operationalized innovative ideas and service efficiency, led teams of physicians and executive leaders, and developed staff. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the American College of Healthcare Executive (ACHE).​

Tanner Thurman is an Associate Application Developer at the Vanderbilt Clinical Informatics Center (VCLIC). He earned his B.S. in Computer Science from Western Kentucky University in 2024, focusing on Machine Learning, AI, and Data Structures. At VCLIC, Tanner develops web applications to enhance clinical information accessibility and efficiency. He is passionate about exploring machine learning and AI through various side projects. Tanner's technical expertise spans multiple programming languages and frameworks, with a particular interest in AI technologies and full-stack development. In his role, he aims to contribute to advancing healthcare technology through innovative software solutions.

Research Portfolio: https://www.thurmanportfolio.com/

Dr. Shirts's research has included on statistical and bioinformatic methods to improve genetics sequencing analysis. To an increasing degree my research focuses on translational work related to communication of genetic test results between laboratories, providers, patients and their families. One recent successful project on new strategies to help hereditary cancer patients communicate about their genetic risk with relatives led to the development of a non-profit organization, ConnectMyVariant. ConnectMyVariant helps patients across the world find and connect with others who have the same pathogenic variants so that they can share stories, find common ancestors, and encourage each other to reach out to relatives.

Dr. Shirts is Service Medical Director of the Molecular Genetics Laboratories, including Cytogenetics, Molecular Diagnostics and Clinical Genomics. 

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