2025 Guest Speakers

Dr. Sharif Ellozy specializes in Vascular Surgery, with a special focus on Endovascular Surgery, Aneurysm-Aortic and Peripheral Vascular Disease. He practices primarily in New York, NY, and is affiliated with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Dr. Ellozy graduated from NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine in 1996, and completed his training at Mt Sinai Hosp and Mt Sinai Hosp. He is board certified in Vascular Surgery.

Dr. Gustavo Oderich is the John P. and Kathrine G. McGovern Professor of Surgery and Distinguished Chair of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).  He serves as Director of the Aortic Center and of the Advanced Endovascular Aortic Program at the Memorial Hermann Heart and Vascular Institute at the Texas Medical Center. Dr. Oderich completed his general surgery and vascular surgery training at the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic, joining the Mayo Clinic faculty in 2006. He relocated to Houston in 2020 from the Mayo Clinic, where he practiced for 20 years and was the immediate past Chair of the Vascular and Endovascular Surgery. Dr. Oderich is a genuine academic surgeon who has become world-renowned for advancements in fenestrated and branched stent-graft technology to treat complex aortic aneurysms and dissections. Dr. Oderich has an extensive bibliography that includes four edited books, over 800 publications in peer-reviewed journals, abstracts and book chapters.  He is Associate Editor in two international journals and is a member of the editorial board of over 30 surgical and medical journals. Dr. Oderich is a member in good standing of numerous societies including American Surgical Association, American College of Surgeons and the Society for Vascular Surgery.

Dr. C. Keith Ozaki serves as the John A. Mannick Chair of Surgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and as a Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.  He recently completed his tenure at the Executive Vice-Chair for the Department of Surgery.  Dr. Ozaki earned his undergraduate and medical degrees from Duke University, trained at the Deaconess/Harvard Surgical Service, and went on to complete a fellowship in vascular surgery at the University of Michigan.  At the University of Florida (1997-2008), he served as Professor and also as Chief of the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System.

This academic surgeon performs approximately 250 vascular cases annually, including open operations for visceral and lower extremity arterial occlusive disease, and complex hemodialysis access.  He co-edited a two-volume comprehensive vascular surgery textbook/atlas Master Techniques in Surgery: Vascular Surgery.  Twice the Florida surgery residents recognized his role in their training via the Lester R. Dragstedt Award, and in Boston Dr. Ozaki was a nominee for the Harvard Medical School Charles McCabe Faculty Prize for Excellence in Teaching, and he won the Joseph E. Murray M.D. and Simon J. Simonian M.D., Sc.D. Prize for Research Excellence in Surgery.  Nationally he has served multiple national professional organizations such as the American Board of Surgery (Vascular Surgery Board Director), Society for Vascular Surgery, Vascular Access Society of the Americas (Board Director), and the American College of Surgeons.

Beyond his clinical and teaching contributions, Dr. Ozaki has led an NIH and AHA funded vascular research laboratory for two and a half decades, and he has spearheaded investigator initiated as well as industry translational clinical studies and device trials.  His works have been published in highly competitive journals within surgery (Journal of Vascular Surgery, Surgery) and beyond (Circulation, Circulation Research, American Journal of Pathology, American Journal of Physiology, Cell, Nature Biomaterials, Nature Communications, Science Advances).