Akshay Desai, MD, MPH is the Director of the Cardiomyopathy and Heart Failure Program in the Advanced Heart Disease Section of the Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Womenโs Hospital and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (both in Boston, Massachusetts). He received his undergraduate education at Princeton University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1992 with an A.B. in Public and International Affairs. He was subsequently awarded a Rhodes Scholarship for study at Oxford University, where he completed an M. Phil. in European Politics and Society at Balliol College in 1994. Following on this, he began his medical training at Harvard Medical School where he was awarded the M.D. degree in 1998. He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Womenโs Hospital in 2001 and subsequently elected to pursue fellowship training in Cardiovascular Medicine at the same institution. During the final years of subspecialty training in cardiology, he completed additional fellowship training in Heart Failure and Transplantation under the direction of Dr. Lynne Stevenson. Concurrently, he conducted translational research in vascular medicine and diastolic heart failure under the supervision of Dr. Mark Creager. He was awarded an M.P.H. in 2004 from the Harvard School of Public Health. He currently divides his time between clinical care of patients with advanced heart disease and clinical research in cardiovascular clinical trials, with an emphasis on the pathophysiology, pharmacologic treatment, and ambulatory management of patients with heart failure.
