Professor Jason Kovacic is the Executive Director of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute and Adjunct Professor at the University of Western Australia. He graduated from The University of Melbourne Medical School in 1994, and then undertook residency and cardiology specialty training in interventional cardiology at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, becoming a Fellow of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 2003. Prof Kovacic then completed a PhD in cardiovascular medicine at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute.

In 2007, he was elected as a Fellow of The American College of Cardiology and relocated to the USA, to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. At the NIH, Professor Kovacic discovered critical new pathways that lead to blockage of the body's blood vessels. He then moved to The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. In parallel with his vital ongoing research to define new ways to prevent and treat vascular disease, Jason is a practicing clinical cardiologist, specializing in vascular disease and blockages of the heart arteries.

Professor Kovacic has authored numerous scientific and clinical papers on heart and vascular disease and serves on a number of NIH committees. He has a particular interest in unraveling the pathobiology of the vascular diseases, fibromuscular dysplasia and spontaneous coronary artery dissection.

He is also President-Elect of the Australian Cardiovascular Alliance.

In addition to his many achievements in medicine and in biomedical research, Professor Kovacic was an elite athlete, having been a world-class rower, plays classical guitar and speaks several languages.