Dr. Fisher has had a long career as a translational and clinical researcher in the stroke field. He was at the University of Massachusetts Medical School for 36 years, retiring in 2014.While there, he led a stroke modeling lab for 25 years that focused on using MRI technology to evaluate the ischemic penumbra and the effects of many types of therapies on the evolution of ischemic injury. He trained more than 25 research fellows from around the world, many of whom currently hold prestigious positions.He participated in many clinical trials as a principal investigator or steering committee member. Dr. Fisher was also an active clinician and teacher. Currently, Dr. Fisher is a part time member of the neurology faculty at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and is a Professor of Neurology (part time) at Harvard Medical School.He continues to see patients and teach residents and stroke fellows. He was the Editor-in-Chief of Stroke until 2020.

Dr. Gurol, a vascular neurologist and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, is an international expert on ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke prevention as well as cerebral small vessel diseases of the elderly such as cerebral amyloid angiopathy. These conditions increase the risk of both hemorrhagic and ischemic cerebral events in affected individuals and they are major contributors to cognitive impairment. Dr. Gurol uses advanced neuroimaging techniques to clarify the molecular and physiologic mechanisms of these brain microangiopathies and develop methods to stratify stroke risk. Dr. Gurol leads the High Hemorrhage Risk Stroke Prevention Clinic with a focus on stroke prevention in the high-risk patient, i.e. patients with a hemorrhage prone cerebral pathology and a concomitant high embolic risk such as atrial fibrillation. Dr. Gurol published about 200 scientific articles and he gave invited talks at more than 100 national and international scientific meetings. He is the PI of the multicenter Neuro-AFib study, an observational study aimed at understanding the mechanisms of ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes in patients with atrial fibrillation as well as other mechanistic studies on cerebral small vessel diseases. He is the Neurocardiology Section Editor of American Heart Association’s Stroke journal and the chair of the World Stroke Organization’s global taskforce on Cerebral Small Vessel Diseases and Vascular Cognitive Impairment.