Partners HealthCare names new Chief Academic Officer

Ravi Thadhani, MD, MPH, has been appointed to the position of Chief Academic Officer at Partners HealthCare. After serving for the past two years as the Vice Dean of Research and Graduate Research Education at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Dr. Thadhani will be returning to Partners to start his new role on November 11, 2019.

Dr. Thadhani is a highly accomplished and distinguished clinical and translational investigator. Over the past 20 years, his research laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) performed observational studies, basic science research and clinical trials with the goal of finding new diagnostic approaches and therapeutic interventions for patients with kidney disease and related disorders. His two main areas of research are preeclampsia diagnostics and therapeutics and vitamin D metabolism.

Dr. Thadhani received his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Pennsylvania and trained at MGH and Harvard Medical School (HMS). He also has a master’s degree in Public Health in Epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is a Professor of Medicine at HMS and served as the Chief of Nephrology at MGH from 2013 to 2017. At Partners HealthCare, he served as the Associate Director of Research from 2012 to 2017 and the Executive Director of the Clinical Trials Office from 2015 to 2017.

Dr. Thadhani has served as a mentor and advisor to dozens of post-doctoral fellows, many of whom now occupy faculty and leadership positions at HMS and other institutions throughout the world. He has made significant contributions to the advancement of women and underrepresented minorities, sponsoring initiatives to promote their career development in academic medicine.

He has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Harvard Medical School Harold Amos Faculty Diversity Award, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Alumni Award of Merit, the Shaul Massry Distinguished Lecture Award from the National Kidney Foundation and the Robert W. Schrier Endowed Lectureship from the American Society of Nephrology. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians, among other prestigious societies.

At Cedars-Sinai, Dr. Thadhani's team formally established the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and grew the PhD and master’s programs. His team forged new and creative collaborations with both the private and public sectors, improving research and education opportunities for all the faculty and bridging basic scientists with clinicians across the health system. During his tenure, Cedars-Sinai experienced record levels of extramural funding and tremendous expansion of its research footprint.

In his role as CAO, Dr. Thadhani will oversee a $1.8B research enterprise, graduate medical education and continuing professional development for Partners HealthCare. He will also serve as HMS Faculty Dean for Academic Programs at Partners, chairing the Partners Committee on Senior Appointments and serving on the Council of Academic Deans. As a member of the CEO’s executive leadership team, he will also work together with senior leadership across the system on a number of system strategic initiatives.

Working closely with Anne Klibanski, MD, President and CEO of Partners HealthCare, and hospital research and education leadership, Dr. Thadhani will make certain that our academic enterprise has a strong and clear role in the future vision of Partners HealthCare.