Dr. Lynne Warner Stevenson is a preeminent leader in cardiovascular medicine and heart failure research with decades of transformative contributions to the field. She currently serves as the Lisa Jacobson Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Director of the Cardiomyopathy Program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center where she also directs the Advanced Heart Disease training program. Dr. Stevenson earned her medical degree summa cum laude from Stanford University in 1979 following undergraduate studies at Princeton University. After completing her internal medicine training at Stanford and UCLA, she joined the UCLA faculty where she co-founded the heart transplant program and established the Ahmanson Cardiomyopathy Center, one of the nation's first comprehensive heart failure management programs before moving to Brigham and Women's Hospital and eventually Vanderbilt.
Dr. Stevenson has made seminal contributions to the understanding and management of advanced heart failure, heart transplantation, and inherited cardiovascular diseases through both clinical and translational research. With support from NHLBI, she has played pivotal leadership roles in developing national strategies for heart failure care, including founding the INTERMACS registry for mechanical circulatory support that now encompasses over 22,000 patients across multiple institutions. Her research has focused on the physiology and clinical profiles of advanced heart failure, pioneering approaches to personalize therapies based on patient goals to optimize both length and quality of life while reducing disease progression. She has authored over 250 original publications and contributed to more than 30 national guidelines for heart failure, transplantation, and cardiomyopathies that have significantly shaped clinical practice standards worldwide.
As a dedicated educator and mentor, Dr. Stevenson has trained over 60 fellows who have gone on to establish academic careers in cardiovascular medicine, profoundly influencing the next generation of heart failure specialists. Her current practice focuses on the early recognition and clinical profiling of genetic cardiomyopathies, integrating molecular and clinical data to personalize care through shared decision-making that incorporates patient goals and reported outcomes. In 2021, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Heart Failure Society of America, cementing her legacy as a transformative figure in cardiovascular medicine. Dr. Stevenson continues to advance the field as an Associate Editor for the Journal of the American College of Cardiology while developing innovative protocols for ambulatory hemodynamic monitoring to prevent heart failure disease progression and improve patient outcomes.
