With a gift to Cardiovascular Medicine, the Dotzauer family makes meaning from loss

On October 2, 2025, Heather Dotzauer and her family presented the University of Wisconsin Department of Medicine (UW DOM) Division of Cardiovascular Medicine with $9,000 to support cardiovascular imaging research.

Their gift honors Heather’s late husband, Nathan, who passed away at age 46 from sudden cardiac arrest.

“We are deeply grateful to the Dotzauer family for their generosity and belief in our mission,” says Hector Valdivia, MD, PhD, professor, Cardiovascular Medicine, who participated in a check presentation with the family on behalf of the division. “This gift fuels the kind of creative, collaborative research that brings new hope to patients with heart disease.” 

Through grief to hope

Three months after Nathan’s passing in 2023, Heather Dotzauer posted on social media about the importance of heart disease screening.  

“If we had been more proactive and gotten screening tests, it might have changed things,” she says. “I kept thinking that if I can help even one other family avoid this, I have to try.”

In response to Heather’s outreach, a former classmate of Nathan’s made a discounted screening available to people who said her message prompted them to be proactive.

When she began hearing from people—including strangers—who had screening tests and were thankful, it gave Heather a measure of hope.

“It made me feel really good about something, for the first time in a long time.”

It made me feel really good about something, for the first time in a long time.

Heather Dotzauer

Golfing for a good cause

Soon after, Heather started the Nate Dotzauer Foundation and helped organize a fundraiser tied to one of her husband’s great loves: golf. 

“Golf was a natural, fun choice of activity,” she says. “It’s something Nate did with his parents, friends, and loved to do with his sons. It’s something we all did together.” 

The first annual Nate Dotzauer Memorial Golf Outing took place on June 28, which would have been Nathan’s 48th birthday. It was, by all accounts, a tremendous success—drawing more participants and raising more money than Heather or her family expected. 

Some of those proceeds will go toward scholarships for local high school students through the McFarland Education Foundation.

And the rest?

"We knew it had to be something heart-related," Heather says.

Imagining a better future

Nathan was an alumnus of UW, so Heather opted to reach out to the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association to discuss honoring him with a gift to the university.

As she learned about the innovative work happening in Cardiovascular Medicine, Heather was drawn to the research of James Stein, MD, Robert Turell Professor of Cardiovascular Research and director of the UW Atherosclerosis Imaging Research Program. 

Dr. Stein and his team have spent 30 years developing and using ultrasound and related tools for predicting cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. 

His current research is aimed at understanding risk factors and mechanisms of subclinical CVD—work that could help identify individuals who, like Nathan Dotzauer, may have had early signs of heart disease without any symptoms. 

“Our ultimate goal is to use these tools to discover new ways to prevent heart disease,” Dr. Stein says. 

“I know Nathan would think this is all pretty cool,” Heather concludes. “We’ve found a way to turn our grief into something that can help people.”