Emelia J. Benjamin MD, ScM

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 the Jay and Louise Coffman Professor in Vascular Medicine Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine.

She is author of over 950 peer-reviewed publications that focus on the epidemiology, genetics, and prognosis of a variety of cardiovascular conditions and markers including atrial fibrillation, vascular function, systemic inflammation, digital health, and chronic pain. She has been continuously NIH funded since 1998, and currently is contact multi-Principal Investigator on the NIH Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH 1K12AR085635). She is an internationally recognized expert on the epidemiology of atrial fibrillation. Dr. Benjamin 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 was the inaugural Associate Provost for Faculty Development for Boston University Medical Campus (until medical campus Provosts were eliminated at BUMC 2025), and the inaugural Vice Chair for Faculty Affairs, 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, diversity, 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, the 2022 Distinguished Scientist Award, and the 2025 Eugene Braunwald Academic Mentoring Award.