JHU’s Dr. Natalia Trayanova is being inducted into the Women in Tech International Hall of Fame

Dr. Natalia Trayanova, a biomedical engineering professor at Johns Hopkins who pioneered personalized virtual hearts for patients with cardiovascular disease, will be inducted into the Women in Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame.

The ceremony will take place on Monday, June 10, at WITI’s Women in Tech Summit, which is being held in San Jose, California, according to the JHU Hub. The honor was initially established by WITI in 1996, and more than 135 women have since been inducted.

Trayanova’s work focuses on treatment and diagnosis of arrhythmia, which is when a patient has an irregular or rapid heartbeat. She aims to eliminate the “guesswork” associated with the process and led work on creating virtual heart models, which incorporate data from patients to create simulations of a patients’ heart. The 3D model allows Trayanova and doctors to predict whether patients are at-risk for stroke or sudden death from two types of irregular heartbeats, and determine the proper treatments.

Approval for a trial of 160 patients that will be the first of its kind was granted this year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Here’s a look at Trayanova explaining her work in a video from Johns Hopkins Biomedical Engineering, including segments from a talk at TEDxJHU:

The WITI Hall of Fame was created to showcase the contributions of women in tech, and aims to “inspire future generations to reach higher, push boundaries, and create breakthroughs that will positively impact our future,” founder Carolyn Leighton said in a news release. With the Hub, Trayanova talked about work on inclusion.

“I am deeply honored and excited to receive this recognition. I am humbled to be in the company of four other amazing women, whose contributions have profoundly affected science and technology, and who are leaders in their fields,” Trayanova told the Hub. “While I have always strived to be a role model for female scientists and trainees, being inducted into the WITI Hall of Fame sharpens this responsibility to empower women to pursue and advance careers in the STEM fields, and to further societal change to end the disproportionate representation of women in these wide-reaching and important areas. Through these actions, we can bring about a more inclusive and gender-equal world.”

In all, five women will be honored at the WITI Hall of Fame on Monday. Honorees also include:

• Dr. Heather Hinton, an IBM distinguished engineer and CISO of IBM Hybrid Cloud
• Julia Liuson, corporate VP of Microsoft’s developer division
• Blanca Treviño, cofounder of Monterrey, Mexico-based IT company Softtek
• Dr. Sara Rushinek, a professor of business technology and health informatics at the University of Miami