Neil Weissman

Neil J. Weissman, MD, FACC, FASE, is the Chief Scientific Officer for MedStar Health and president of MedStar Health Research Institute. As chief scientific officer, he provides leadership for the development and implementation of specific scientific priorities, with a commitment to further advancing MedStar Health as an academic healthcare system. As president of the Research Institute, he is responsible for the overall strategic and operational direction of the research arm of MedStar Health.

Dr. Weissman is a professor of medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine and an internationally recognized expert in cardiovascular imaging in clinical trials. He founded the Cardiovascular Core Laboratories at MedStar Washington Hospital that has provided services for hundreds of multi-center trials, including multiple studies on the effects of medications on valvular and ventricular function, novel prosthetic valve assessments, and intracoronary therapies.

Specifically, Dr. Weissman’s research interests include the use of cardiovascular ultrasound imaging in clinical trials. He has served as principal investigator for numerous national and international multi-center trials and was the national principal investigator on several cardiac safety studies, including one that involved more than 7,000 participants. More recently, he has been working on artificial intelligence and machine learning with cardiac imaging. Prior to his current roles, Dr. Weissman served as the director of the Clinical Echocardiography Laboratory at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.

Internationally recognized as an expert in cardiac ultrasound, Dr. Weissman has served on several national organizations, as well as editorial boards for various peer-reviewed journals. He has written hundreds of original reports published in high profile journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Annals of Internal Medicine and Circulation. In addition, he has written review articles, book chapters, and a textbook on cardiac imaging. He is frequently invited to serve as an expert on U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panels and National Institutes of Health commissions. Dr. Weissman has held several national leadership roles including past president of the American Society of Echocardiography and past chair of the American College of Cardiology’s Imaging Council. He currently serves on the American Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Advisory Panel on Research.

Dr. Weissman received his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College in New York. He completed his internship, residency and chief residency in Internal Medicine at New York Hospital. He followed his residency training with a clinical and research fellowship in Cardiology and a fellowship in Cardiac Ultrasound at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Research Interests

Dr. Weissman's research interests include

  • Cardiac ultrasound
  • Valvular heart disease
  • Left ventricular remodeling
  • Intravascular imaging
  • Pharmacologic effects on valvular and ventricular function
  • Prosthetic valve assessment
  • Intracoronary therapies

In 1996, Dr. Weissman joined the MedStar Health system and created the Cardiovascular Core Laboratories at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. These laboratories have provided services for more than 150 multicenter trials. View a select listing of multicenter studies and sponsors that Dr. Weissman and the Cardiovascular Core Laboratories have led or supported.

Learn more about cardiovascular imaging on the Cardiovascular Core Laboratories page.

View Dr. Weissman's publications on PubMed

Research Areas


  • Cardiovascular