Our Team
The Arrhythmia team is dedicated to delivering outstanding and compassionate care of arrhythmia patients while working with their physicians and to advancing teaching and medical research in cardiac arrhythmias.
In addition to our cardiac specialists, we have outstanding arrhythmia nurse specialists in the Stanford Arrhythmia Service. They are extremely experienced in the evaluation and care of arrhythmia patients and their families. They have a specialized expertise in the evaluation of patients with implantable devices such as implantable defibrillators, pacemakers, resynchronization devices, and implantable loop recorders.
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Paul J. Wang, MD
Director, Stanford Cardiac Arrhythmia Service
Professor, Cardiovascular Medicine
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Dr. Wang is the director of the Stanford Cardiac Arrhythmia Service and is responsible for overseeing the function and management of the Stanford Cardiac Arrhythmia Center.
He received his undergraduate degree at Harvard University and his medical degree at Columbia University in New York City. He received his medical residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City and completed his cardiovascular training at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a major teaching institution of Harvard Medical School. He was associate director of Cardiac Electrophysiology Laboratory at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston for 14 years.
Dr. Wang has co-authored textbooks on implantable defibrillators, sudden cardiac death, cardiac resynchronization/biventricular pacing therapy, and innovations in arrhythmia therapy. He has invented a number of new arrhythmia technologies, including catheter cryoablation. Dr. Wang is involved in the Stanford Biodesign Program that is an initiative that promotes the development of new health technologies. Dr. Wang is also co-director of the Bioengineering Scholarly Concentration of the Stanford School of Medicine.
Dr. Wang participates on numerous national boards and panels in cardiac electrophysiology. He is currently chair of the Continuing Medical Education SubCommittee of the Heart Rhythm Society. He is chairman and organizer of a major national symposium called New Arrhythmia Technologies and is co-director or faculty for numerous national and international meetings. He has served as a member of the Cardiac Electrophysiology Board Certification Exam Writing Committee of the American Board of Internal Medicine. Dr. Wang has been involved in numerous clinical trials, including ones leading to the approval of the Arctic Front Cryoablation Balloon System. Dr. Wang is involved in the range of implantable device and catheter ablation procedures. He is actively engaged in the care of patients with a wide range of arrhythmias.
He serves as a member of the Cardiac Electrophysiology Board Certification Exam Writing Committee of the American Board of Internal Medicine. Dr. Wang is involved in the range of implantable device and catheter ablation procedures. He is actively engaged in the care of patients with a wide range of arrhythmias. He has been involved in the initiation of the Syncope Evaluation Program and the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Program.
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Amin Al-Ahmad, MD
Associate Director, Stanford Arrhythmia Service and Cardiac Electrophysiology Laboratory
Assistant Professor, Cardiovascular Medicine
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Dr. Amin Al-Ahmad received his undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering at Syracuse University. He received his medical degree at the Tufts University School of Medicine, and completed his medical residency training, cardiovascular training, and cardiac electrophysiology training at Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston.
Dr. Al-Ahmad received the Astra Zeneca Cardiovascular Young Investigator Award for Outstanding Research in Cardiovascular Diseases in New England. He has a particular interest in new advances in the catheter ablation treatment of arrhythmias, including atrial fibrillation, and in lead extraction.
His research areas include new device development and clinical studies of cardiac arrhythmias.
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Dr. Friday received her medical degree at Case Western Reserve University and did her medical residency training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
She received her cardiovascular training at St. Louis University Hospital and Jewish Hospital of St. Louis, Missouri and for a number of years she was part of the electrophysiology faculty at the University of Oklahoma, where many techniques for the treatment of arrhythmias were developed.
While her primary appointment is at the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Hospital, she continues to see outpatients and be part of the Stanford Arrhythmia Service.
Her particular interests include the noninvasive evaluation of arrhythmias, syncope and the use of antiarrhythmic drugs.
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Dr. Zei received his undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University. He earned his medical degree at Stanford University, and he completed a PhD here as well in molecular and cellular physiology, studying the basic cellular and protein mechanisms responsible for normal and abnormal cardiac conduction.
He completed his internal medicine internship and residency, cardiovascular medicine fellowship, and cardiac electrophysiology fellowship at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, a major teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. He then stayed on the clinical electrophysiology staff at Brigham and Women's Hospital before moving back to Stanford. At Brigham and Women's, Dr. Zei's clinical and research mentor, Dr. William Stevenson, is considered one of the world's experts on catheter ablation of ventricular tachycardia and other arrhythmias.
Dr. Zei's clinical interests are in catheter ablation of arrhythmias, including SVT, atrial fibrillation, and in particular ventricular tachycardia. He also has a clinical interest in device implantation, including pacemakers, defibrillators, and cardiac resynchronization devices.
Dr. Zei is developing an active research program in cardiac electrophysiology at Stanford Hospital & Clinics, with primary interests in new ablation technologies and investigating the basic physiologic mechanisms of arrhythmias.
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Dr. Turakhia a cardiac electrophysiologist and instructor at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He received his MD at the University of California, San Francisco and completed his internal medicine residency at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston. He returned to UCSF to for advanced fellowship training in cardiovascular medicine and cardiac electrophysiology and trained under the mentorship of Dr. Melvin Scheinman, one of the founders of invasive electrophysiology. He was recruited to Stanford University in 2008.
Dr. Turakhia specializes in catheter ablation of complex arrhythmias and the management of patients with complex heart rhythm disorders. He was one of the first physicians in California to perform ablation of atrial fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia using remote navigation technology. He implants pacemakers, implantable defibrillators, and cardiac resynchronization devices.
Dr. Turakhia has an active research program whose overall aim is to improve the treatment of heart rhythm disorders at multiple levels (policy, systems, patient, and technology).
He has received a 5-year grant from the United States Veterans Health Administration to understanding national system and patient-level variation of treatment of atrial fibrillation and to develop quality and practice measures to improve care. He has also received a 4-year National Scientist Development Grant from the American Heart Association (AHA) to create the largest-ever national atrial fibrillation outcomes database. He is the recipient of the American College of Cardiology Merck Foundation Postdoctoral Research Award and awardee of NIH grants.
Dr. Turakhia is also a co-investigator of several clinical trials and is also developing clinical studies to evaluate and is also developing clinical studies to evaluate novel diagnostic, signal processing, and device technologies to treat heart rhythm disorders.
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Marco Perez spent his formative years in medical training on the east coast, where he graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed internal medicine training at Massachusetts General Hospital. He then came to California to begin his career as a cardiologist. He completed his cardiology fellowship training in cardiology at Stanford and then completed an NIH-sponsored research fellowship studying the genetics of atrial fibrillation. He focused on the study of genetics and cardiac arrhythmias and completed subspecialty training in cardiac electrophysiology at Stanford.
Dr. Perez's clinical specialties include management of patients with inherited cardiac arrhythmias, such as long QT syndrome, catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT), Brugada syndrome and lone atrial fibrillation. He also specializes in the management of atrial fibrillation and performs catheter based ablations for this and complex supraventricular tachycardias (SVTs). He routinely implants pacemakers, defibrillators and biventricular resynchronization devices.
Dr. Perez's research is now concentrated on studying the genetics of cardiac arrhythmias including atrial fibrillation, long QT syndrome and Brugada syndrome. He has a particular interest in studying the genetic differences between ethnic groups to identify novel genes responsible for cardiac disease, and uncovering novel genetic markers linked to inherited arrhythmias. His research is sponsored by the American Heart Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the NIH and the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute.
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Dr. Shirley Park received her undergraduate degree in cognitive neuroscience at Harvard University. She received her medical degree at the New York University School of Medicine, and did her medical residency training, cardiovascular training, and cardiac electrophysiology training at Stanford University.
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Linda K. Ottoboni, RN, MS
Clinical Nurse Coordinator
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Linda studied nursing at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota, earning her BS in 1980.
She obtained her MS in cardiac physiological nursing at the University of California, San Francisco in 1987.
Linda joined the staff at Stanford Hospital & Clinics in 1984 where she began working in cardiovascular medicine as a nurse and nurse educator. Linda moved to the arrhythmia team in 1991 and became the lead cardiovascular nurse coordinator in 1995.
In addition to her clinical role, Linda teaches physiological nursing and has made numerous presentations at meetings and lectures in cardiomyopathy, congestive heart failure, arrhythmia, cardiovascular disease, and related aspects of cardiovascular care.
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Angela Tsiperfal, RN, BSRN, MSN, NP
Nurse Practitioner
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Angela earned her MSN as a cardiovascular clinical nurse specialist from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 1997.
Angela worked as a cardiology clinical nurse specialist at the UCSF before she came to Stanford Hospital & Clinics. In 2001 she joined the arrhythmia team as clinical coordinator.
She returned back to UCSF and got her acute care nurse practitioner certificate in 2006. She joined our group as a nurse practitioner in 2008. She works in the in-patient and outpatient settings.
Her experience also includes extensive work in emergency medicine and anesthesiology. She is one of the editors of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Management: Practical Guide for Nurses and Allied Professionals book published by Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. She is also one of the editors of the Progress in Cardiovascular Nursing journal. She regularly teaches classes for nurses.
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Marcia Glassford, RN, BSN
Clinical Nurse Coordinator
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After earning her bachelor's degree in nursing, Marcia worked 17 years as a registered nurse on cardiac units in various hospital settings and with registry units.
She came to Stanford Hospital & Clinics in 1995 and worked as part of the intermediate cardiac care unit and as a research nurse in the stroke center before joining the arrhythmia team in 2002.
Marcia enjoys working directly with patients and teaching in the areas of pre-/post-procedure care, medications, and treatments. She especially enjoys collaborating with nursing colleagues and physicians and would someday like to expand on her interest in teaching.
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Kelly Cook, RN, BSN, NP
Clinical Nurse Coordinator
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Kelly has been at Stanford Hospital & Clinics since 1991, where she began as a staff nurse in the cardiac surveillance unit and coronary care unit. Kelly then became acting assistant nurse manager for these areas. She also worked as a transtelephonic arrhythmia network coordinator prior to joining the arrhythmia team in 1999.
As part of the Stanford Cardiac Arrhythmia Service, Kelly works as a clinical coordinator three days a week. In her role with the arrhythmia clinic, Kelly pursues her interest in cardiology and electrophysiology - pacemakers, defibrillators, and heart failure.
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Linda Norton, RN, MSN, CCRC
Nurse Research Manager
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Linda joined Stanford Hospital & Clinics in 2002 as the clinical research manager of a large epidemiological research study at the Stanford Prevention Research Center. She has been the nurse research manager of the Arrhythmia Service since 2005.
She received her graduate degree in cardiovascular and pulmonary nursing from Yale Graduate School of Nursing and remained on faculty there as an assistant professor for 6 years.
She has co-authored manuscripts, book chapters and presented abstracts on heart rate variability, phlebitis in amiodarone use, ethnic differences in CAC, incidental findings in CT scan, clinical use of Stanford brief activity survey, and many critical care related topics such as weaning from mechanical ventilation. Linda is a current member of the Heart Rhythm Society and is a certified clinical research coordinator through ACRP.
Her current research interest is in the factors contributing to the development of amiodaraone induced phlebitis.
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Carlene Mallet, BSN
Clinical Nurse Coordinator
See the Bio »Carlene obtained her BSN in 2001. She started her career in the coronary care unit at Stanford Hospital & Clinics where she stayed for a little over five years. Carlene left Stanford Hospital & Clinics for a brief period to explore home health care where she expanded her knowledge and bridge between the acute care setting to the outpatient setting by providing case management to those in the community.
She happily returned to Stanford in 2010 as a relief nurse coordinator in the cardiology clinic where she eventually decided to pursue her interest in electrophysiology. As part of the Stanford Cardiac Arrhythmia service, Carlene supports the device clinic as well as the pacemakers and defibrillators with the heart failure population. Carlene enjoys working directly with patients and expanding her knowledge in cardiology.
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Aimee Lee, RN, MS-CNS
Nurse Coordinator
See the Bio »Aimee received her degrees from the University of Saint Louis and the University of California, San Francisco. Her clinical experience includes critical care and cardiovascular ICU settings.
Aimee is a professional member of the American Association of Heart Failure Nurse, the Heart Rhythm Society, and the American Heart Association. She is now completing her DNP and cardiovascular NP at Duke University, with a projected graduation date of June 2013. Her research interests include symptoms and quality of life in arrhythmia patients and symptom experiences of women with arrhythmias.
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Kaylyn Armstrong RN, MSN
See the Bio »Kaylyn earned her BSN from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington and her MSN from the University of California, San Francisco. While with Stanford Hospital & Clinics, Kaylyn has worked in the cardiovascular ICU, the cardiac catheterization and electrophysiology laboratories and the arrhythmia clinic. She currently works part-time with the remote device monitoring program.
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Mustafa Yahya, RN, MS
Nurse Coordinator
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Mustafa studied nursing at University of Jordan in Amman earning his bachelor's degree in 2004. He obtained his masters in cardiac physiological nursing at the University of California, San Francisco in 2011. Mustafa joined the staff at Stanford Hospital & Clinics in 2011 where he began working in cardiovascular medicine as a nurse coordinator with the arrhythmia team by supporting the device clinic (pacemakers and defibrillators).
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Tatyana Perkis
Administrative Associate See the Bio »Our administrative associate, Tatyana Perkis, is very experienced and provides administrative support for the Cardiac Arrhythmia Service.