Academic History

Ashkan Shoamanesh, MD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Division of Neurology) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, where he holds the Marta and Owen Boris Chair in Stroke Research and Care. He is the founding Director of the Hemorrhagic Stroke Research Program and a Senior Scientist at the Population Health Research Institute. Dr Shoamanesh earned his MD from McMaster University in 2007, completed his Neurology residency at the University of British Columbia in 2012, and undertook fellowship training in Vascular Neurology at Boston University School of Medicine/Framingham Heart Study and Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Dr Shoamanesh is the founding Chair of the Canadian Hemorrhagic Stroke Trials Initiative (CoHESIVE) and has led or co-led multiple international, multicentre randomized clinical trials, including ENRICH-AF (NCT03950076), OCEANIC-STROKE (NCT05686070), SATURN-MRI (NCT03936361), and CoVasc-ICH (NCT05159219). He is the lead author of the first Canadian Stroke Best Practice Recommendations on the Management of Spontaneous Intracerebral Hemorrhage and serves on the editorial boards of Stroke, the International Journal of Stroke, and the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences.

Speaking on Hemorrhagic Stroke and Secondary Prevention

Dr Shoamanesh’s research focuses on advancing treatment strategies and establishing new standards of care to prevent stroke and reduce stroke-related death and disability, with particular emphasis on hemorrhage-prone cerebral small vessel disease and intracerebral hemorrhage. His work addresses the complex risk–benefit balance of antithrombotic, lipid-lowering, and fibrinolytic therapies in high-risk populations.