Dr Christian received his MD degree from Albany Medical College and MPA from Harvard University. He completed his fellowship in cardiology at the Mayo Clinic and was a faculty member in the cardiology division for a number of years, achieving the rank of Professor of Medicine. His work has been centered on noninvasive cardiac imaging with expertise in cardiac MRI, cardiac CT, and nuclear cardiology. Research focuses have included acute imaging for chest pain, animal models of absolute myocardial blood flow by MRI and CT, and statistical methodologies for the application of imaging to clinical questions. He has over 100 peer-reviewed publications.