Sunil V. Rao, MD, will become the editor-in-chief of the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions on July 1.

Rao is the chief of cardiology at the Durham Veterans Affairs Health System, a professor at Duke University Health System and a member of the Duke Clinical Research Institute. He has published more than 200 papers in medical journals and previously served as an associate editor for the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Journal.

“We are confident that Dr. Rao will bring the highest level of dedication and commitment to excellence in the publication of cardiovascular intervention research,” said Mark Estes, MD, chair of the AHA’s Scientific Publishing Committee, in a press release.

Rao’s main research focuses include pharmacological and interventional therapies for acute coronary syndromes and bleeding and blood transfusion complications among patients with ischemic heart disease, according to the release. As its name suggests, Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions publishes research centered on interventional techniques to treat coronary and structural heart disease and vascular conditions.