2026 Alexander S. Nadas Lecture Lecturer Lecturer – Elaine Urbina, MD, MS, FAHA

Elaine Urbina, MD, MS, FAHA

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
Cincinnati, Ohio

Elaine Urbina, MD, MS, is professor emeritus of pediatrics (cardiology) and former director of preventive cardiology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

Urbina began her research career with the Bogalusa Heart Study in 1991, where she initiated noninvasive cardiovascular imaging studies on young adults. She continues to work with the study as part of the 50-year follow-up conducted by the International Cardiovascular Cohorts Consortium. In 2003, she moved to Cincinnati Children’s to extend this research to adolescents with obesity-related cardiovascular risk factors.

Since 1994, her research has received continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health and/or the American Heart Association. She served as principal investigator of the American Heart Association's Strategically Focused Research Network multicenter study of pediatric hypertension, known as SHIP AHOY.

Her cardiovascular core has also provided training and support for numerous multicenter pediatric studies conducting cardiovascular and blood pressure assessments, including CKiD (chronic kidney disease). It also serves as the Cardiovascular Imaging Core for a variety of cohorts, including TODAY2 (Type 2 diabetes), SEARCH 3 (Type 1 diabetes), FUEL (single-ventricle congenital heart disease), DO IT (dyslipidemia), PHACS (HIV) and TIDES (environmental exposures).

Urbina is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. She is past chair of the Atherosclerosis, Hypertension and Obesity in Youth Committee of the CV Disease in the Young Council of the American Heart Association, as well as past president of the International Pediatric Hypertension Association and the North American Artery Society.