I am a physician-scientist focused clinically on general cardiology in the MU Healthcare System while also conducting translational research on cardiovascular medicine in the School of Medicine at MU and teaching medical students, residents and fellows in the MU Department of Medicine. In addition to general cardiology, my clinical interests are heart failure, cardiac rehabilitation and preventative cardiology. My research aims are to understand the mechanisms of metabolic cardiomyopathy along with development of treatment paradigms centered around exercise and diet interventions. Prior to this, I completed a combined research and clinical post-doctoral fellowship in cardiovascular medicine. I conducted research on an American Heart Association post-doctoral fellowship grant to better understand the mechanisms of cardiac diastolic dysfunction in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction due to over-nutrition from a high-fat/high-fructose "Western Diet". I also served as chief fellow in cardiology supervising the training of cardiology fellows at MU Healthcare System. I completed clinical internship and residency training in internal medicine culminating in the achievement of board certification in internal medicine. In addition to my clinical training, I focused on quality improvement research aimed at preventing coronary artery disease and heart attacks in patients of my primary care clinic. During my MD/PhD education at the University of Missouri, my dissertation research focused on the mechanism of and gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) heart disease. This work improved the understanding of heart disease in DMD patients by identifying the dosage of gene therapy required to prevent and treat disease, the optimal route of delivery and the optimal treatment timing for DMD heart disease.