Dr. Robert A. Harrington is an interventional cardiologist and the Arthur L. Bloomfield Professor of Medicine and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Stanford University. Dr. Harrington was previously the Richard Sean Stack, MD Distinguished Professor and the Director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) at Duke University. His research interests include evaluating antithrombotic therapies to treat acute ischemic heart disease and to minimize the acute complications of percutaneous coronary procedures, studying the mechanism of disease of the acute coronary syndromes, understanding the issue of risk stratification in the care of patients with acute ischemic coronary syndromes, building local, national and international collaborations for the efficient conduct of innovative clinical research and trying to better understand and improve upon the methodology of clinical research. His research has been extensively funded through NIH, NIA, other peer reviewed agencies and private industry. Committed to training and mentorship, Harrington has served as the principal mentor for more than 20 post-doctoral clinical research fellows focused on cardiovascular research.

He has authored more than 640 peer-reviewed manuscripts, reviews, book chapters, and editorials. Thomson Reuters lists him as one of the most cited investigators in clinical medicine from 2002-2014. He is a deputy editor of JAMA Cardiology and an editorial board member for the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. He has served as editor of five textbooks and is a senior editor of the 13th and 14th editions of Hurst’s The Heart, one of the leading textbooks of cardiovascular medicine. He has been a member of the NHLBI’s Clinical Trials Study Section and the IOM’s Working Group on Data Sharing. He served as a member of the NIH NCATS Advisory Council Working Group on the IOM CTSA Program. He recently served a second term as a member and the chair of the US Food and Drug Administration Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee.

Harrington was recently a member of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Board of Trustees and is currently a member of the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Board of Directors, its Science Advisory and Coordinating Committee, and its President-elect. He will serve as the AHA President beginning in July 2019. He served as the Chair for the AHA’s Scientific Sessions in 2013 and 2014. Harrington is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the Society for Cardiac Angiography and Intervention, the European Society of Cardiology, the American College of Chest Physicians and the American College of Physicians. He is an elected member of the Association of American Physicians and the Association of University Cardiologists. In 2015, he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Medicine/Institute of Medicine. In 2016, he was named a Master of the American College of Cardiology. He was awarded the AHA's Clinical Research Prize in 2017.

Harrington received his BA in English at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA. He attended Dartmouth Medical School and received his MD from Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston MA. He did his internship, residency and served as the chief resident in internal medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Worcester MA. He trained in cardiology, interventional cardiology and clinical research (Duke Databank for Cardiovascular Disease) at Duke University Medical Center, Durham NC where he was a faculty member from 1993-2012 before joining the Stanford University faculty in 2012. Interested in innovative learning tools, including novel methods of communicating scientific information, Harrington hosts a regular podcast on theheart.org, The Bob Harrington Show, and can be followed on Twitter @HeartBobH.

 

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

ADMINISTRATIVE APPOINTMENTS

• Chair, Department of Medicine (2012 - Present)