Cedars-Sinai has appointed Dr. Ravi Thadhani as its inaugural executive vice president, chief physician executive, and dean of the Medical Faculty, effective Sept. 1.
In this newly established leadership role, Thadhani will lead both the academic and clinical operations at the Los Angeles-based top nonprofit academic medical center, bridging patient care, scientific research, and medical education.
He will succeed Dr. Shlomo Melmed, who is stepping down after 28 years in the role to become dean emeritus and an executive adviser to Cedars-Sinai President and CEO Dr. Peter L. Slavin.
Thadhani currently serves as Cedars-Sinai’s executive vice president of clinical affairs and chief medical officer. In his expanded capacity, he will maintain oversight of clinical quality, safety, and medical standards while taking responsibility for academic affairs, including the Burns and Allen Research Institute and Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University.
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Born in India, Thadhani moved with his family during early childhood, living briefly in Nigeria and Hawaii before settling on the island of Guam. Neither of his parents completed high school, but they encouraged his academic pursuits.
Personal family health struggles directly shaped his career trajectory: observing his mother’s frequent hospitalizations for severe asthma sparked his early interest in medicine, while his father’s later diagnosis of kidney disease led him to specialize in nephrology.
Supported by a Guam government scholarship loan, Thadhani earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame. He went on to receive his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and later earned a Master of Public Health degree in epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
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Thadhani’s administrative career includes key roles at major academic institutions. He began his career at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, later serving as chief academic officer and dean for faculty affairs at Mass General Brigham.
In 2022, he was named executive vice president for health affairs at Emory University, vice chair of the Emory Healthcare Board of Directors, and executive director of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center. He previously served as Cedars-Sinai’s vice dean for research and education from 2017 to 2019.
As an active researcher, Thadhani has authored and co-authored more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific articles. His primary research focuses on kidney disease and preeclampsia, a serious hypertensive complication of pregnancy. His collaborative work at Cedars-Sinai contributed to the development of the first Food and Drug Administration-approved biomarker test used to predict preeclampsia risk.
Thadhani’s contributions to research have earned him election to the National Academy of Medicine and a fellowship with the American Association for the Advancement of Science.