Nimesh Desai is a cardiovascular surgeon who serves as Co-Director of the Penn Thoracic Aortic Surgery Program and an Associate Professor of Surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He also serves as Associate Director of the Cardiovascular Outcomes, Quality, and Evaluative Research (CAVOQER) Center at Penn. He received his medical degree from the Schulich School of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario and his doctorate of philosophy in clinical epidemiology from the University of Toronto. He completed an integrated Cardiac Surgery Residency at the University of Toronto and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada. He holds several national leadership positions in cardiovascular surgery including Co-Chair of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Aortic Surgery Task Force and Co-Chair of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons/American College of Cardiology Transcather Valve Therapies Registry Risk Modelling Sub-Committee.
Dr. Desai’s research interests include organizing large multi-center clinical trials to assess new cardiovascular technologies and health process evaluations using big-data and novel statistical approaches to improve quality of care for cardiac patients. Dr. Desai is Primary Investigator of over 10 clinical trials currently ongoing at Penn, holds grants for database and registry development and was recently awarded funding from the NHLBI to develop and direct a Clinical and Implementation Research Skills Program (CIRSP) for surgical trainees as part of a successful Penn U01 submission. Dr. Desai’s clinical focus is on advanced aortic surgery, both endovascular and open, percutaneous valve replacement, complex valve surgery, multiple arterial grafting and arrhythmia surgery.
