UTSW Fellows: The Next Generation of Global Leaders in Cardiology

As part of one of the leading academic medical centers in the nation, UT Southwestern’s Division of Cardiology offers a dynamic fellowship program that prepares well-trained physicians for a future caring for a wide range of cardiology conditions.

Currently, we have 48 general cardiology, research, and advanced training fellows in our program. Below are brief highlights and descriptions of just a few of their accomplishments and areas of expanding expertise.

Leonard Chiu, M.D., M.S., is a second-year cardiology fellow with a strong interest in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. He joined the UT Southwestern Cardiology Fellowship in 2024 after completing his internal medicine residency at Vanderbilt. He was a finalist for the Laennec Fellow-in-Training Clinician Award at #AHA25, where he presented a complex diagnostic case involving coexisting wild-type transthyretin and light chain amyloidosis. Dr. Chiu was also invited as a young faculty participant to the 2025 Amyloidosis Forum Meeting at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He has authored 37 publications on topics ranging from amyloidosis to cardiometabolic disease and heart failure to quality of life in patients with cancer. Outside of his academic pursuits, Dr. Chiu is an avid soccer player and a member of the fellowship team.

Zain Chunawala, M.D., completed his internal medicine residency at UT Southwestern and is a first-year cardiology fellow with a strong interest in heart failure and cardiometabolic disease. He was a finalist for the Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health Early Career Investigator Award Competition at #AHA25, where he presented his work on lifestyle interventions from the Look AHEAD trial, as well as a moderated digital poster examining associations between metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease and heart failure risk. Among his other honors, Dr. Chunawala has received the George L. Bakris Scholarship Award and the Trudy Bush Fellowship Award for Cardiovascular Disease Research in Women’s Health. He has authored more than 23 publications spanning lifestyle interventions, heart failure, and peripheral artery disease.

Shanice Glasco, M.D., is a second-year fellow with interests in cardiovascular prevention and familial hyperlipidemia. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine–Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before joining the Cardiology Fellowship at UT Southwestern in July 2024. Dr. Glasco’s research focuses on gaps in the pediatric-to-adult transition of care for youth with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, work that is supporting the development of a standardized FH transition program at UTSW. She is an active member of the AHA Fellow-in-Training Programming Committee and served as a moderator at #AHA25 for discussions on effective mentor-mentee relationships as well as navigating parenting during cardiology training. Dr. Glasco is also committed to community outreach, volunteering in local schools to teach cardiac resuscitation skills and promote healthy lifestyle choices.

Trish Jefferson, M.D., M.H.S., is a third-year cardiology fellow with developing expertise in cardiac amyloidosis and heart failure. She completed her internal medicine training at Johns Hopkins University before joining UT Southwestern in July 2023. Dr. Jefferson is deeply committed to global medical education, facilitating virtual ECG bootcamps for internal medicine residents at the University of Zambia. She collaborates with the PEN-Plus writing group to document and evaluate screening and management practices for noncommunicable diseases in Zambian hospitals. Working with UTSW’s Justin Grodin, M.D., as an amyloidosis fellow sponsored by the Amyloidosis Research Consortium, she is involved in a number of research projects, including identifying subclinical transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis in asymptomatic carriers of the V122I TTR allele, assessing longitudinal biomarker responses to TTR-stabilizing therapy, and investigating sex-based differences in AL and ATTR cardiac amyloidosis. In addition, she serves as a sub-investigator on multiple studies, including the MAGNITUDE and DepleTTR-CM trials. She will begin her advanced heart failure and transplant fellowship at UT Southwestern in July 2026.

Balakrishnan Pillai, M.D., is a second-year fellow with an interest in sports cardiology and cardiovascular physiology. He trained in internal medicine at Stanford University and joined the UT Southwestern Cardiology Fellowship in 2024. Dr. Pillai has established himself as a leader, serving as Co-Chair of the Texas Chapter of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Fellow-in-Training Committee and as a member of the Texas ACC FIT Jeopardy team that won the state competition. He serves as an instructor for simulation-based training in rapid response and ACLS scenarios for internal medicine residents. His research examines coronary artery plaque progression in response to high-volume exercise, and he presented work on overcoming exercise nonresponse in healthy older adults as a moderated digital poster at #AHA25. He also delivered an oral presentation on ventricular arrhythmias in athletes at the 2025 Texas Chapter ACC meeting. Dr. Pillai has authored seven manuscripts and two textbook chapters and will begin a cardiovascular research fellowship at the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine in July 2026.

Lena Tran, M.D., is a third-year cardiology fellow with a growing expertise in vascular medicine. She joined the UTSW Cardiology Fellowship in 2023 after completing her internal medicine residency at Vanderbilt University and has been active in national professional societies, including service on the AHA’s CLCD & Stroke Women’s Health Science Committee within the Council of Clinical Cardiology. Dr. Tran received a Physicians-in-Training Scholarship supporting her attendance at the multidisciplinary VIVA/VEINS conference, where she presented on May-Thurner syndrome, and she was selected for the Society for Vascular Medicine Fellows Leadership Institute this year. Her research examines the association between retinal microvascular abnormalities and peripheral arterial disease (PAD), and she collaborates with the iSCAD network to evaluate reproductive features in patients with spontaneous coronary artery dissection. Dr. Tran established a PAD database at Parkland Memorial Hospital and is leading the implementation of a diabetes-PAD co-clinic to enhance care for high-risk patients. She will be joining the cardiology faculty at UT Southwestern in July.