Dr Santiago Ortega earned his MD at University of Alcala in Madrid Spain, did his Internal Medicine and Neurology residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin, completed a Neurocritical care and Stroke Fellowship at Columbia University, and an Endovascular Neurosurgery fellowship at Mount Sinai in New York. He is currently the Director of Neuro Interventional Surgery in Neurology at UI and the Neuroendovascular Surgical Neuroradiology Fellowship Director. He is also the Vice Chair of the Mechanical Thrombectomy 2020+ initiative and President of the Society of Vascular and Interventional Neurology. His research interest includes cerebral autoregulation and hemodynamics, neuroimaging as a selection tool and developing novel endovascular approaches and devices to treat cerebrovascular ischemic and hemorrhagic disease. Currently Dr. Ortega-Gutierrez has over 300 publications in peer-reviewed journals as well as he is the PI in several NIH/NINDS, PCORI and industry funded investigator-initiated studies and Randomized Trials including MAP-STROKE, DIRECT and DONE SYMPLE.

Carlos Contreras Mesa is a cross-sector project manager whose work spans multinational clinical research, public-sector innovation, and AI-driven technology. As Project Manager and Lab Manager of the Cerebrovascular & Neurointerventional Laboratory at University of Iowa Health Care, he directs two concurrent multinational clinical trials across a 40-site network and oversees a combined $15M research portfolio under strict ICH-GCP and FDA compliance. He also led the development of "Jarín-Jarín," an AI system that analyzes satellite and drone imagery to monitor public-works progress and flag stalled projects; a venture that reached the top-5 finalists among 36 startups from 17 countries. He holds a Master of Science in Project Management from UDIMA and is a recognized AI educator who teaches advanced techniques such as Chain of Thought for critical thinking and dynamic content generation.

Dr. Galecio-Castillo is a neurologist and physician-scientist whose research focuses on cerebrovascular disease. As Scientific Lead of the CVNI Lab, she plays an active role in shaping the lab’s scientific direction, leads research projects, and mentors a multidisciplinary research team. Her work combines clinical neurology and quantitative methods, with particular expertise in biostatistics and causal inference. She applies these approaches to investigate clinically meaningful questions of treatment effects, prognosis, and disease mechanisms. Her methodological interests also include predictive modeling, machine learning, and clinical trial design. A central theme of her research is understanding how cerebral hemodynamics, autoregulation, and collateral circulation influence tissue injury, treatment response, and outcomes after stroke. Dr. Galecio-Castillo completed her neurology residency in Peru before pursuing a research career in the United States. Under the mentorship of Dr. Ortega-Gutierrez, she contributes to grant-funded research and a growing body of scholarly work aimed at advancing stroke care.