Svati H. Shah, the Ursula Geller Distinguished Professor of Research in Cardiovascular Diseases at the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, has been named president-elect of the American Heart Association. She will serve in this volunteer leadership role for the 2026–2027 fiscal year, followed by a one-year term as president in 2027–2028.
At Duke, Dr. Shah serves as associate dean for translational research in the School of Medicine, director of the Duke Center for Precision Health, and director of the Precision Genomics Collaboratory. She is also the vice-chief of translational research for the division of cardiology, director of the Adult Cardiovascular Genetics Clinic, and co-director of translational research in the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute.
As a physician-scientist, Dr. Shah researches the metabolic and genetic pathways of cardiometabolic diseases. In her interdisciplinary molecular epidemiology lab at the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute, she and her team integrate diverse genomic, metabolomic, and proteomic techniques for identification of novel mechanisms of disease and biomarkers.
Dr. Shah holds a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a medical degree from the University of Washington School of Medicine. After completing an internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts, she came to Duke in 2001, where she completed a cardiology fellowship, a master’s degree in medical genomics, and a postdoctoral fellowship in genetic epidemiology.