Symposium Speakers and Presenters
Mathew R. Morrell, MD
Mathew Morrell, MD, joined the division of Pulmonary and Critical Care as a professor of Medicine. He completed his internal medicine residency and his fellowship in pulmonary and critical care at Washington University in St. Louis/Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Later, he was recruited to the University of Pittsburgh in the division of pulmonary, allergy and critical care medicine as an assistant professor and a lung transplant pulmonologist, the director of the pulmonary stepdown unit at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and then medical director of the lung transplant program. His passion for expanding access to lung transplantation through organ donation led him to be appointed the medical director of the Center for Organ Recovery and Education (CORE), the region’s local organ procurement organization.
Dr. Morrell has been involved in medical education of medical students, residents and fellows and has served as the pulmonary transplant fellowship director at the University of Pittsburgh. He is an active member of the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation and the American Thoracic Society.
Dr. Morrell joined the faculty at the University of Utah and the lung transplant program as the medical director. He hopes to promote organ donation and provide increased opportunities for lung transplantation to the people here in the mountain west. In his spare time, Dr. Morrell enjoys attending his children’s football games and swim meets. He is an avid cross country runner and pipe organ player.
Craig Selzman, MD
Dr. Craig Selzman is the Dr. Russell M. Nelson and Dantzel W. Nelson Presidential Endowed Chair as well as Professor and Chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Utah who specializes in the care of patients requiring heart surgery.
Clinically, Dr. Selzman is the Surgical Director of the Cardiac Mechanical Support and Heart Transplant program and serves as the Medical Director of the Transplant Service Line for the University of Utah Hospital. In addition to his role in the advanced Heart Failure and artificial heart program, he specializes in complex valvular heart disease including reoperative heart surgery, adult congenital heart disease, and aortic root reconstruction. He is one of a few surgeons in the Intermountain West with significant experience with minimally invasive heart surgery for a wide variety of disease, and, in particular, mitral valve repair.
Dr. Selzman is heavily involved with clinical research related to advanced heart failure, transplantation, and ventricular assist devices. He also has an active basic science collaboration with many of our researchers here at the University of Utah. Dr. Selzman is one of a handful of cardiothoracic surgeons that runs a laboratory funded by the National Institute of Health. His research focus is related to examining mechanisms of heart recovery.
Josef Stehlik, MD, MPH
Josef Stehlik, MD, MPH, is a Christi T Smith Professor of Medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine. Dr. Stehlik has received his medical degree from Charles University in Prague and a Master's in Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health. He completed his training in Internal Medicine and Cardiovascular Diseases at Allegheny General Hospital, MCP*Hahnemann University, and advanced training in Heart Failure and Transplantation at the Cleveland Clinic.
Dr. Stehlik has been on faculty at the University of Utah since 2004 and serves as Medical Director of the Heart Transplant Program and Co-chief of the Advance Heart Failure Program at the University of Utah Hospital and the Salt Lake City Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He is active in clinical work, education, and research in the areas of advanced heart failure, heart transplantation, and mechanical circulatory support.
Spencer Carter, MD
Spencer Carter is an assistant professor in the section of heart and transplant at the University of Utah. After growing up in Boise, he completed his medical school through the WWAMI program followed by internal medicine, cardiology, and heart failure training at UTSW/Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas.
Dr. Carter has a clinical and academic interest in infiltrative diseases and is the cardiovascular director of the amyloidosis clinic overseeing several industry clinical trials and investigator-initiated studies. He also is passionate about implementation science with several projects investigating the transition of care between inpatient and outpatient heart failure management.
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Alison Brann, MD
Alison Brann is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiology section at the University of Utah. Alison grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah then obtained her Medical Degree at Rush Medical College in Chicago, Illinois. She then trained at the University of California San Diego where she completed a residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in cardiovascular disease before moving home to complete her training in Advanced Heart Failure at the University of Utah in 2024.
Dr. Brann recently joined the University of Utah faculty in September 2024. She has clinical expertise in advanced heart failure, mechanical circulatory support, and heart transplantation. She also has clinical and research interests in hypertrophic and inherited cardiomyopathies.
Mary Beth Scholand, MD
Dr. Mary Beth Scholand, MD is an associate professor in Pulmonary Medicine. Her research and clinical interest is Interstitial Lung Disease. This interest encompasses Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, Autoimmune Lung Diseases, and Sarcoidosis. She is the Director of the Interstitial Lung Disease Clinic. She runs clinical trials focused on a cure for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. In addition, her research focuses on phenotypic factors and genetic factors associated with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases and Interstitial Lung Diseases.
Jeanette P. Brown, MD, PhD
Jeanette P. Brown, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She grew up in a military family, living in Colorado, Texas, Japan, and Germany. She attended the University of Utah and completed a B.S. in Medical Laboratory Sciences. She then completed the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Colorado and obtained her medical degree and Ph.D. in Immunology. Her Ph.D. focus was on allergic asthma models with an emphasis on T-cell and dendritic cell interaction. She moved to the University of Michigan and completed residency training in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine. She was a clinical lecturer for one year and then was promoted to clinical assistant professor. She moved to Utah in 2017 to join the University of Utah faculty.
Her current inpatient and outpatient clinical focus is on patients with chronic respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation due to neuromuscular diseases including spinal cord injury, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), muscular dystrophy, and many other diseases. She enjoys working with other providers from Neurology and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation to care for these complex patients in a multidisciplinary setting. She also has experience managing diaphragm pacers in patients with spinal cord injuries and central congenital hypoventilation syndrome.
Given her background in multidisciplinary clinics, she was involved in the building of the Comprehensive COVID Clinic at the University of Utah and is the medical director of the clinic. The clinic’s goals include providing care to patients who have symptoms of COVID-19 (severe and long COVID), helping to facilitate research and further educating other clinicians about how to care for these patients.
Laura K. Frye, MD
Dr. Laura Frye is an associate professor in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Utah and Huntsman Cancer Institute, focusing on lung transplantation and interventional pulmonary.
Dr. Frye completed her fellowship training in pulmonary and critical care at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She completed additional training with a fellowship in advanced lung disease at the University of Pennsylvania and an interventional pulmonary fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic. She is currently completing a Masters in bioethics at the Ohio State University.
As a medical educator, she is involved locally, regionally, and nationally in the education of pulmonary and critical care fellows and practicing physicians and is heavily involved in the certification of interventional pulmonary fellows. She has leadership roles within the American Thoracic Society, the American College of Chest Physicians, and the American Association for Bronchology and Interventional Pulmonology. She is an invited author of multiple reviews and services as a peer-reviewer for multiple high-impact medical journals.
Dr. Frye’s research is focused on outcomes of medical simulation education, health-related quality-of-life assessments, and lung transplantation. She uses her unique background to advocate for policy related to pulmonary diseases at the national and medical society levels.
Emily Beck, MD
Dr. Beck treats patients with advanced lung disease, specializing in pulmonary vascular disease, and cares for critically ill patients in the medical intensive care unit. She also cares for veterans in the VA Salt Lake City Healthcare System, where she has a focus on improving care processes for the management of incidental lung nodules and lung cancer screening. Dr. Beck has a passion for teaching and mentoring medical students, residents, and pulmonary fellows in on the wards, and through simulation training and formal didactic sessions. Her research interests include the behavior of alveolar macrophages in smoking-related lung diseases.
Holly Andrews, PA-C
Holly Andrews is a physician assistant working with the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Clinic and the Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Clinic at the University of Utah. Holly is originally from Colorado, obtained her bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University in Exercise Science in 2010, and obtained her master’s degree in physician assistant studies from Philadelphia University in 2014. She transitioned from working in otolaryngology to transplant cardiology in 2017 after her mother had a double lung due to the desire to work in the life-changing field of transplant medicine. In 2018, Holly became the dedicated advanced practice provider in the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Clinic. Then, in 2022 she joined the ongoing research effort in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy as a sub-investigator in multiple clinical trials with the desire to advance therapy options for patients with this lifelong disease.
Regional Case Presenters
Sophia Airhart, MD, Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, Boise, ID
Sophia Airhart, MD is an advanced heart failure physician known for her expertise in the management of patients with pulmonary hypertension. She serves as the Director for Heart Failure, Mechanical Circulatory Support, and pulmonary hypertension at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. She is a dedicated researcher and has conducted several clinical trials as a primary investigator in the field of heart failure. She has authored multiple original research publications as well as several book chapters and is committed to offering her patients the most advanced therapies and treatments. Dr. Airhart grew up in rural Oregon and loves the outdoors. In her spare time, she enjoys cycling, running, meditation and yoga. Dr. Airhart is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Utah.
Stefanie Fry, MD, St. Luke’s Hospital, Boise, ID
Stefanie J. Fry, MD is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American Society of Echocardiography. She completed her fellowship in cardiology at the University of New Mexico, followed by a fellowship in cardiac imaging at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr. Fry is an invasive cardiologist and the medical director of the St. Luke's Heart Failure Clinic. She is a past chair of the Department of Cardiovascular Services at St. Luke’s Boise and Meridian Medical Centers and a prior Idaho Governor of the American College of Cardiology.
Louise Eubank, MD, Saint Alphonsus Pulmonary, Boise, ID
Louis Eubank, MD was fellowship trained at UMMS/UMASS Chan-Baystate and attended Tufts University School of Medicine. His practice philosophy is to treat all patients with care and compassion. He also supports a team-centered approach and will do his best to coordinate as needed. Dr. Eubank practices at Saint Alphonsus Pulmonary.