Emily J. Tsai, MD

Dr. Emily J. Tsai is the Florence Irving Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons and an attending physician at the Center for Advanced Cardiac Care of New York-Presbyterian Hospital at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Board-certified in Cardiovascular Medicine and Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiology, Dr. Tsai specializes in caring for heart failure patients who require, or who have received, a ventricular assist device or heart transplant.

Dr. Tsai is a magna cum laude graduate in engineering sciences of Harvard College and a cum laude graduate of Harvard Medical School and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology Program. She completed internal medicine residency training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and then cardiology fellowship and advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology training at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. As a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awardee, Dr. Tsai completed post-doctoral basic cardiovascular research training at Johns Hopkins University in the laboratory of Dr. David A. Kass. After fellowship training, Dr. Tsai was recruited to Temple University School of Medicine as an assistant professor of medicine and physiology and a principal investigator in its Cardiovascular Research Center. In 2015, Dr. Tsai joined the faculty of Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and established her laboratory in molecular and integrative cardiac pathophysiology. 

As a physician-scientist, Dr. Tsai studies the molecular and cellular biology of heart failure with the goal of developing novel therapies. Major areas of research in Dr. Tsai’s laboratory include the signaling of soluble guanylyl cyclase (the nitric oxide receptor) in the heart, right heart dysfunction, and cardiac complications associated with COVID-19. Dr. Tsai has been nationally recognized for her scientific achievements by the American College of Cardiology and the Heart Failure Society of America, with their respective Presidential Career Development Award and Jay N. Cohn New Investigator in Basic Sciences Award. She has been awarded several research grants from the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, Foundation of Gender Specific Medicine, and the Columbia University Provost’s Grants Program. Dr. Tsai has served on national committees of the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, and Heart Failure Society of America.