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Laura J Olivieri, MD, FAHA, FSCMR

  • Director of Cardiac Imaging, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh
  • Professor of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Laura Jean Olivieri, MD is a board-certified Pediatric Cardiologist specializing in Advanced Cardiac Imaging at Children's Hospital Pittsburgh, and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at University of Pittsburgh. She graduated from University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and completed her pediatric residency at Brown University in Providence, RI, where she also was invited to stay for a chief year.  She completed her training in pediatric cardiology at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC following by a year in advanced cardiac imaging at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute specializing in cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging.  She is considered a leader in the field of 3-dimensional reconstruction of congenital  heart  defects from 3D imaging, and serves as Director of Noninvasive Cardiac Imaging for the Heart Institute at Children’s Hospital Pittsburgh. She is most interested in improving image acquisition using MRI and echocardiographic in 3D printing of heart models and has compiled a successful grant portfolio to that end. 

She also serves as Principal Investigator for an R01 to investigate application of cardiac MRI and Interventional Cardiac Magnetic Resonance on the care of pediatric heart transplant patients.  This is a 4.5 million dollar, 5-year contract aimed at using CMR to guide interventional cardiac catheterization procedures, using less sedation for diagnostic CMR procedures and to advance diagnostic CMR capabilities to use less invasive testing.  

Professional and Scientific Society Memberships

  • American Heart Association, Fellow, 2006-Present
  • Society for Cardiac Magnetic Resonance, Fellow, 2008-Present
  • American Society for Echocardiography, 2010-Present

Education & Training

  • BS, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA
  • MD, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, Chicago, IL
  • Residency, Brown University/Hasbro Children’s Hospital, Providence, RI
  • Cardiology Fellowship, George Washington/Children's National, Washington, DC
  • Advanced Cardiac Imaging, George Washington/Children's National, Washington, DC

Selected Publications

Olivieri L, Arling B, Friberg M, Sable C. Coronary artery Z score regression equations and calculators derived from a large heterogeneous population of children undergoing echocardiography. J Am Soc Echocardiogr. 2009 Feb;22(2):159-64. PMID: 19084373
- Featured on ParameterZ by Rady Children's Hospital (rchsd.org)

Olivieri LJ, Krieger A, Loke YH, Nath DS, Kim PC, Sable CA. Three-dimensional printing of intracardiac defects from three-dimensional echocardiographic images: feasibility and relative accuracy.J Am Soc Echocardiogr. 2015 Apr;28(4):392-7.  PMID: 25660668
- Commentary: Kanwal M. Farooqi, MD, and Partho P. Sengupta.  Echocardiography and Three-Dimensional Printing: Sound Ideas to Touch a Heart.  J Am Soc Echocardiogr. 2015 Apr;28(4):398-403.

Olivieri LJ, Cross RR, O'Brien KE, Ratnayaka K, Hansen MS.  Optimized protocols for cardiac magnetic resonance imaging in patients with thoracic metallic implants. Pediatr Radiol. 2015 Jun 4. PMID: 26040508

Ratnayaka K, Kanter JP, Faranesh AZ, Grant EK, Olivieri LJ, Cross RR, Cronin IF, Hamann KS, Campbell-Washburn AE, O'Brien KJ, Rogers T, Hansen MS, Lederman RJ. “Radiation-free CMR diagnostic heart catheterization in children”.  J Cardiovasc Magn Reson. 2017 Sep 6;19(1):65. PMID: 28874164

Loke Y-H, Kim B, Mass P, Opfermann JD, Hibino N, Krieger A, Olivieri L. Role of surgeon intuition and computer-aided design in Fontan optimization: a computational fluid dynamic simulation study. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2020, Jan 29. doi: 10.1016/j.jtcvs.2019.12.068 PMID: 32057454
- “Commentary: Yet another Fontan computational study—but this one has clay” by Ronald K.Woods, MD, PhD and SalilGindeMD, MPH, JTCVS
- “Commentary: A 3-minute foray into the future” By William DiCampli, MD, JTCVS
- “Commentary: Man versus machine: Whose side are you on?” by Tain-Yen Hsia, MD, JTCVS

Olivieri LJ, Jiang J, Hamann K, Loke YH, Campbell-Washburn A, Xue H, McCarter R, Cross R. Normal right and left ventricular volumes prospectively obtained from cardiovascular magnetic resonance in awake, healthy, 0- 12 year old children. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson. 2020 Feb 3;22(1):11. PMID: 32013998; PMCID: PMC6998283.
- Finalist for Gerald Pohost Award for Best JCMR Publication of the Year 2021
- Featured on parameterz website for normal values

Mandell JG, Loke YH, Mass PN, Opfermann J, Cleveland V, Aslan S, Hibino N, Krieger A, Olivieri LJ. “Aorta size mismatch predicts decreased exercise capacity in patients with successfully repaired coarctation of the aorta.” J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2020 Oct 7:S0022-5223(20)32707-0. PMID: 33131888
- "Commentary: Aortic anatomy late after coarctation repair: Size matters" Joseph B. Clark. JTCVS, 6 Oct 2020
- "Commentary: Exercise Capacity After Coarctation Repair: When Size Finally Matters!" Sameh M. Said, MBBCh, MD, FACS.  JTCVS, 6 Oct 2020

Loke YH, Capuano F, Cleveland V, Mandell JG, Balaras E, Olivieri LJ. “Moving beyond size: vorticity and energy loss are correlated with right ventricular dysfunction and exercise intolerance in repaired Tetralogy of Fallot. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson. 2021 Aug 19;23(1):98. doi: 10.1186/s12968-021-00789-2. PMID: 34412634
- Finalist for Gerald Pohost Award for Best JCMR Publication of the Year 2022

Richmann DP, Gurijala N, Mandell JG, Doshi A, Hamman K, Rossi C, Rosenberg AZ, Cross R, Kanter J, Berger JT 3rd, Olivieri L. “Native T1 mapping detects both acute clinical rejection and graft dysfunction in pediatric heart transplant patients.” J Cardiovasc Magn Reson. 2022 Oct 3;24(1):51. doi: 10.1186/s12968-022-00875-z. PMID: 36192743

Kollar SE, Udine ML, Mandell JG, Cross RR, Loke YH, Olivieri LJ. “Impact of ferumoxytol vs gadolinium on 4D flow cardiovascular magnetic resonance measurements in small children with congenital heart disease.” J Cardiovasc Magn Reson. 2022 Nov 10;24(1):58. doi: 0.1186/s12968-022-00886-w. PMID: 36352454

Wolfe NK, Schiff MD, Olivieri LJ, Christopher AB, Fogel M, Slesnick TC, Krishnamurthy R, Muthurangu V, Dorfman AL, Lam CZ, Weigand J, Robinson JD, Rathod RH, Alsaied T; FORCE Investigators. “Cardiac MRI Predictors of Arrhythmic Sudden Cardiac Events in Patients With Fontan Circulation.” J Am Coll Cardiol. 2024 Oct 14 PMID: 39453360

Ceneri NM, Vegulla R, Mouzakis N, Hamann K, Richmann D, Kanter J, Berger J, Downing T, Loke YH, Staffa SJ, Zurakowski D, Cross R, Olivieri LJ. “Longitudinal Assessment of T1 Mapping Trends Disease in Pediatric Patients With Heart Transplant.” J Am Heart Assoc. 2024 Nov 5 PMID: 39435719

Academic and Research Interests

  • Pediatric Cardiac imaging
  • MR-guided intervention
  • 3D computational modeling