Cardiovascular Engineering T32 Program Trainee, 2020-2022
UMN Doctoral Dissertation Fellow, 2025-2026
Education/Experience:
- BS, Materials Science & Engineering/Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, 2018
- MS, Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, 2019
- Earl E. Bakken Medical Device Innovation Fellow, University of Minnesota, 2020
- PhD, Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota, 2026
Hometown: New York, New York
Interests: calligraphy and typography, rock music, trivia nights
Biography: Molly received her PhD in Biomedical Engineering in Spring 2026. As Dr. Kyoko Yoshida’s first trainee, she spearheaded our heart research, using computational modeling techniques to explore the contributions of hormones and hemodynamics to pregnancy-induced left ventricular growth. She also collaborated with Dr. Craig Goergen and the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Laboratory (CVIRL) at Purdue University to investigate the impact of lactation on postpartum cardiac recovery by monitoring cardiac size and shape throughout pregnancy and the postpartum period. Following her PhD, she hopes to advance the field of cardio-obstetrics by examining how sex and gender differences shape cardiovascular health across the lifespan.
Dissertation: A Multiscale Computational Approach for Disentangling Hormonal and Mechanical Regulation of Pregnancy-Induced Cardiac Growth: An Exploration of the Shared Mechanisms in Healthy and Hypertensive Pregnancies and the Postpartum Period
PREG Publications:
- M. Kaissar, E. Ghajar-Rahimi, A. Meeks, A. Shen, Y. Wu, C. Goergen, K. Yoshida, "The influence of lactation on postpartum murine heart growth", Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology (2026) [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yjmcc.2025.10.012]
- M. Kaissar, K. Yoshida, "Computational model captures cardiac growth in hypertensive pregnancies and in the postpartum period", American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology (2024) [https://doi.org10.1152/ajpheart.00104.2024]
