Prof. Béla Merkely, MD, Ph.D., DSc, FESC, FACC

Professor Béla Merkely has been the Rector of Semmelweis University since 2018, the Chairman and the Director of Semmelweis University’s Heart and Vascular Centre since 2012. He holds the position of the Chairman of the Department of Aviation and Space Medicine and the Chairman of the Sports Medicine Department, both at the Faculty of Medicine of Semmelweis University. Professor Merkely is also the Honorary President and the former President of the Hungarian Society of Cardiology and the Hungarian Heart Rhythm Association; the former President of the Hungarian Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Intervention, and the President of the Cardiology Section of the Professional College. Between 2014 and 2016 he was Councillor, between 2016 and 2018 he was Vice-President of the European Society of Cardiology. His major research interests are the non-pharmacological treatment of heart failure; new techniques in interventional cardiology; invasive and non-invasive imaging in heart failure; arrhythmias and acute coronary syndromes; sport cardiology, cardiac remodelling of elite athletes. He has earned numerous awards and honours, including the Széchenyi Prize in 2021, the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary (Commander Cross) in 2016, the Honorary citizenship of Budapest in 2013, the Elite Reviewer of the Europace Journal in 2012, the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, Officer’s Cross in 2011, the Nivou Prize of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2009.