Emelia J. Benjamin, MD, ScM
Associate Provost for Faculty Development

Biography
Emelia J. Benjamin, MD, ScM, FACC, FAHA, received her AB at Harvard, her MD at Case Western Reserve University, and her Epidemiology ScM at Harvard School of Public Health. She is a Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Boston University and is a cardiologist at Boston Medical Center. She is a Robert Dawson Evans Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine.
She is author of over 800 peer-reviewed publications that focus on the genetics, epidemiology, and prognosis of a variety of cardiovascular conditions and markers including atrial fibrillation, vascular function, and systemic inflammation. She has been continuously NIH funded since 1998, and currently is multi-Principal Investigator on an R01 atrial fibrillation grant [2R01HL092577], several chronic pain grants, and is the Training Director on the Boston University American Heart Association Strategically Focused Research Network on Cardio-Oncology. She is an internationally recognized expert on the epidemiology of atrial fibrillation. Dr. Benjamin has Co-Chaired the NIH National Heart Lung and Blood Institutes’ (NHLBI) Atrial Fibrillation Working Group, which advised the NHLBI’s atrial fibrillation research agenda, and resulted in 6 publications.
Dr. Benjamin has conducted research at the Framingham Study since 1988. She is a Member of the Executive Committee, and is Co-Director of the Medical Endpoints Committee. She was Principal Investigator of the grant that recruited the second generation of the Framingham Study’s ethnic/racial minority cohort, the Omni Study.
In addition to her research, she is the inaugural Associate Provost for Faculty Development for Boston University Medical Campus, and the inaugural Vice Chair for Faculty Development and Diversity, BU Department of Medicine. She co-designed and co-leads Faculty Development Programs for Early, Mid-Career, Under-Represented Ethnic and Racial, Women, and Clinical Leaders. In 2023 she completed the Columbia University Advanced Coaching Certification.
A passionate and dedicated mentor, she has won local and national awards for mentoring, education, and research. She was inducted into the Association of American Physicians and she won the 2020 Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award.
An active volunteer for the American Heart Association since 1992, she has served on a variety of local and national Committees. She is Past-Chair of the American Heart Association’s Functional Genomics and Translational Biology Council and Study Section, and the annual Heart and Stroke Statistical Update. She received the 2015 Paul Dudley White Award, the 2016 AHA Gold Heart Award, the 2016 Population Research Prize, the 2019 Laennec Clinician/ Educator Lecturer, and the Genomics and Precision Medicine 2019 Distinguished Achievement Award, and the 2022 Distinguished Scientist Award.
Other Positions
- Professor, Cardiovascular Medicine, Medicine, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
- Professor, Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health
- Primary Investigator, Framingham Heart Study
- Member, Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute, Boston University
- Member, Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research, Boston University
Websites
- BU Profile
- Boston Medical Center Provider Profile
- Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute Training Program
- Google Scholar
- ResearchGate
- Building Your CV and Criteria for Academic Promotion | Presentation
- Committing to the Prevention of Atrial Fibrillation
- Dr Emelia J. Benjamin: Atrial Fibrillation Is Common and Increasing in Incidence
- Case Western Reserve University Alumni Award
Education
- Case Western Reserve University, MD
- Harvard School of Public Health, ScM
Publications
- Published on 12/1/2023
Cunha J, Chan MV, Nkambule BB, Thibord F, Lachapelle A, Pashek RE, Vasan RS, Rong J, Benjamin EJ, Hamburg NM, Chen MH, Mitchell GF, Johnson AD. Trends among platelet function, arterial calcium, and vascular function measures. Platelets. 2023 Dec; 34(1):2238835. PMID: 37609998.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 9/14/2023
Frederiksen TC, Krogh Christiansen M, Benjamin EJ, Overvad K, Olsen A, Dahm CC, Kjærulf Jensen H. Five-year Changes in Weight and Risk of Atrial Fibrillation in the Danish Diet, Cancer, and Health Cohort. Eur J Prev Cardiol. 2023 Sep 14. PMID: 37708406.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 9/12/2023
Jiang MZ, Gaynor SM, Li X, Van Buren E, Stilp A, Buth E, Wang FF, Manansala R, Gogarten SM, Li Z, Polfus LM, Salimi S, Bis JC, Pankratz N, Yanek LR, Durda P, Tracy RP, Rich SS, Rotter JI, Mitchell BD, Lewis JP, Psaty BM, Pratte KA, Silverman EK, Kaplan RC, Avery C, North K, Mathias RA, Faraday N, Lin H, Wang B, Carson AP, Norwood AF, Gibbs RA, Kooperberg C, Lundin J, Peters U, Dupuis J, Hou L, Fornage M, Benjamin EJ, Reiner AP, Bowler RP, Lin X, Auer PL, Raffield LM. Whole Genome Sequencing Based Analysis of Inflammation Biomarkers in the Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) Consortium. bioRxiv. 2023 Sep 12. PMID: 37745480.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 8/30/2023
Buhari H, Fang J, Han L, Austin PC, Dorian P, Jackevicius CA, Yu AYX, Kapral MK, Singh SM, Tu K, Ko DT, Atzema CL, Benjamin EJ, Lee DS, Abdel-Qadir H. Stroke risk in women with atrial fibrillation. Eur Heart J. 2023 Aug 30. PMID: 37647629.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 8/26/2023
Stroup AM, Villanti AC, Pfund C, Benjamin EJ, Denlinger-Apte RL, Garcia-Cazarin ML, Kwan J, Stanton CA. Guidance for Addressing Conflicts, Bias, and Growth in Early Career Tobacco Regulatory Science Training through Mentorship. Nicotine Tob Res. 2023 Aug 26. PMID: 37632690.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 8/25/2023
Pirruccello JP, Khurshid S, Lin H, Weng LC, Zamirpour S, Kany S, Raghavan A, Koyama S, Vasan RS, Benjamin EJ, Lindsay ME, Ellinor PT. AORTA Gene: Polygenic prediction improves detection of thoracic aortic aneurysm. medRxiv. 2023 Aug 25. PMID: 37662232.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 8/21/2023
Frederiksen TC, Christiansen MK, Benjamin EJ, Overvad K, Olsen A, Dahm CC, Jensen HK. Five-year changes in alcohol intake and risk of atrial fibrillation: a Danish cohort study. Eur J Prev Cardiol. 2023 Aug 21; 30(11):1046-1053. PMID: 36508613.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 7/14/2023
Wang X, Pathiravasan CH, Zhang Y, Trinquart L, Borrelli B, Spartano NL, Lin H, Nowak C, Kheterpal V, Benjamin EJ, McManus DD, Murabito JM, Liu C. Association of Depressive Symptom Trajectory With Physical Activity Collected by mHealth Devices in the Electronic Framingham Heart Study: Cohort Study. JMIR Ment Health. 2023 Jul 14; 10:e44529. PMID: 37450333.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 7/8/2023
Sahni S, Dufour AB, Wang N, Kiel DP, Hannan MT, Jacques PF, Benjamin EJ, Vasan RS, Murabito JM, Newman AB, Fielding RA, Mitchell GF, Hamburg NM. Association of Vascular Health Measures and Physical Function: A Prospective Analysis in the Framingham Heart Study. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2023 Jul 08; 78(7):1189-1197. PMID: 37183502.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 7/7/2023
Tasdighi E, Jha KK, Dardari ZA, Osuji N, Rajan T, Boakye E, Hall ME, Rodriguez CJ, Stokes AC, El Shahawy O, Benjamin EJ, Bhatnagar A, DeFilippis AP, Blaha MJ. Investigating the association of traditional and non-traditional tobacco product use with subclinical and clinical cardiovascular disease: The Cross-Cohort Collaboration-Tobacco working group rationale, design, and methodology. Tob Induc Dis. 2023; 21:89. PMID: 37427074.
Read at: PubMed
View 865 more publications: View full profile at BUMC