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Ethnicity and disparities in cardiovascular disease
Elizabeth Odilile Ofili (born 1956) is a Nigerian-American physician and cardiology researcher. She was the first woman to become president of the Association of Black Cardiologists.
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Early life and education
Ofili was born and raised in Nigeria, and attended Ahmadu Bello University for medical school. She moved to the United States in 1982 and earned a master's of public health from Johns Hopkins University in 1983. She completed her postgraduate education in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Career and research
Ofili began her career with research at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, and continued her cardiology research while a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. In 1994, she became an associate professor at Morehouse School of Medicine, and was promoted to full professor in 1999. Her research focuses on heart disease in the African-American population, dyslipidemia, hypertension, coronary artery disease, heart failure, and echocardiography; her work in the African American Heart Failure Trial substantially changed guidelines on heart failure treatment for African-Americans. She has also conducted research with NASA into the effects of microgravity on vasculature. She is acclaimed for her studies of myocardial blood flow.