Dr. Carl L. Backer is a Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Heart Institute of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and is Chief of the Division of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at Kentucky Children's Hospital . He was previously the Surgical Director of the Congenital Heart program at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago. He has co-edited the texts Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, Atlas of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, Pediatric Cardiology, and Wilcox's Surgical Anatomy of the Heart. He is a world authority on vascular rings, tracheal surgery, and repair of atrioventricular septal defects. He is a Director on the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, Past President of the Congenital Heart Surgeons' Society, and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the World Journal for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery. He and Dr.

Mavroudis were partners at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois from 1989-2008. Dr. Constantine Mavroudis is Professor Emeritus of Surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and former Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Peyton Manning Children's Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is a world authority in arrhythmia surgery and helped to develop the Fontan conversion procedure for patients with failed Fontan physiology. He has co-authored and co-edited multiple books and atlases in the field of congenital heart surgery. He led the development of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Database and was instrumental in instituting a common nomenclature. He is Past President of the Congenital Heart Surgeons' Society and Past President of the Southern Thoracic Surgical Association.