DR.  RICARDO
KOMOTAR
MD, FAANS, FACS

Dr. Sandberg is Professor of Pediatric Surgery and Neurosurgery and is the Dr. Marnie Rose Professor of Pediatric Neurosurgery at McGovern Medical School/UT Health. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He completed neurosurgery residency training at Weill Cornell Medical College at Cornell University and New York-Presbyterian Hospital. He was awarded the Resident Traveling Fellowship in Pediatric Neurosurgery by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. He completed this fellowship at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. After residency, he completed fellowship training in pediatric neurosurgery at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. After 8 years on the faculty of the Miller School of Medicine of the University of Miami and Miami Children’s Hospital, he moved to Houston to become the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at the McGovern School of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He holds a joint faculty appointment at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he is co-director of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Program. His major research interest involves novel delivery methods to treat malignant brain tumors in children.

Dr. Andrea J. Heuson has been on the Finance Faculty at the School of Business Administration at the University of Miami since 1982. She served as the Director of the International Finance and Marketing major from 1998 to 2008 and was appointed Academic Director of Real Estate Programs in 2009. Dr. Heuson has presented research at more than 100 academic conferences in her career and published articles on mortgage finance and other fixed-income markets in numerous academic journals while teaching valuation, international finance, management of financial institutions and real estate finance in undergraduate, graduate and executive level programs. Her research has appeared in Real Estate Economics, the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, the Journal of Real Estate Research and the Journal of Housing Economics. In addition to her academic duties, Heuson serves as a consultant on all aspects of real estate brokerage and appraisal licensing for the State of Florida, including evaluation of licensing examinations and educational materials. In addition to her 2015 appointment as the Secretary of AREUEA, she is also the Treasurer of the Financial Management Association and is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Financial Research.

Paul A. Pavlou’s research has been cited more than 90,000 times by Google Scholar, and Thomson Reuters recognized him among the “World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” based on an analysis of Highly Cited Researchers. Paul was ranked No. 1 globally in publications in top Information Systems journals from 2010 to 2016. He earned a Ph.D. in Information Systems and a master’s in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California, and a bachelor’s in electrical engineering and managerial studies, magna cum laude, from Rice University. In his former position as Dean of the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston, Paul helped raise over $150M in philanthropic gifts and commitments. During his tenure, the Bauer College led all business schools by ascending 34 spots in the U.S. News & World Report rankings to become a Top 50 MBA program; climbed 44 spots in the online master’s programs rankings; joined the Top 15 public undergraduate programs by Poets&Quants; and ranked #1 undergraduate entrepreneurship program by The Princeton Review for five consecutive years. He also prioritized experiential learning and job placement through initiatives like the Office of Experiential Learning and various research institutes, while also enhancing community inclusion with programs such as the Center for Economic Inclusion, securing over $10M in philanthropic support.

Feld arrived in Coral Gables after spending the previous four seasons working in the same capacity at the University of Oregon under Cristobal. In Feld’s four years in Eugene, the Ducks compiled a 35-12 overall record, won two Pac-12 Championships and won the 2020 Rose Bowl. Feld arrived in Oregon from the University of Georgia, where he spent the previous three years as the assistant director of strength and conditioning while working with the Bulldogs’ football program. Before working at Georgia, Feld was the head strength coach at the University of North Alabama and a volunteer strength coach at the University of Alabama, where he worked with Cristobal. Feld is a graduate of Mississippi State University and holds certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association and the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association. He began his career at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he worked with both the football and women’s basketball programs.

Joel Totoro is a registered dietitian and former director of sports science at Thorne where he oversaw human performance integration with Thorne’s sports partners. Totoro became the first full-time sports dietitian in professional sports serving eight years as team dietitian for the New England Patriots directing all aspects of the team’s nutritional needs. He was also University of Michigan’s sports dietitian and served as the assistant chief dietitian at St. Luke’s Hospital in Massachusetts, specializing in trauma nutrition. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Allied Health-Dietetics from the University of Connecticut.

Dr. Adrian L. Mesa is the founder and CEO of AMP Mental Health. Active within the healthcare field since 2006, he earned his doctorate degree from the University of Miami, and has board certifications by the American Nurses Credentialing Center as both a Family Nurse Practitioner and Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. Aside from AMP, Dr. Mesa is an Army veteran, a father, a fitness enthusiast, and a photographer. Adrian traces the roots of his interest in mental health long before the start of his career. Being a first generation Cuban-American, he saw in real time the repercussions of the stigmas held by the Latino community, and even in his own family, toward those with mental illness. Dr. Mesa saw firsthand how mental illness impacted his uncle, who remains a role model and life mentor to this day and cites him as a frequent source of inspiration.