2026 Ancel Keys Memorial Lecturer – Caroline Fox, MD, MPH, FAHA

Caroline Fox, MD, MPH, FAHA

Merck Research Laboratories
Boston, Massachusetts

Caroline S. Fox, MD, MPH, FAHA, is a physician-scientist, biopharmaceutical executive and internationally recognized leader in cardiometabolic medicine whose career has spanned academic medicine, the National Institutes of Health, biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry. She most recently served as global development lead for obesity and internal medicine at Pfizer, where she led the clinical development of innovative therapies for obesity, aging and related disorders.

Before joining industry, Fox spent more than a decade at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study, where she built a pioneering research program in diabetes, obesity, kidney disease and human genetics. She founded CKDGen, an international consortium dedicated to uncovering the genetic basis of kidney disease and related cardiometabolic traits. Fox has authored more than 400 peer-reviewed publications and has delivered invited lectures worldwide. She has been recognized among Thomson Reuters' “World's Most Influential Scientific Minds” and is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Fox has served the American Heart Association in numerous leadership roles, including as associate editor of Circulation and vice chair of the Council on Functional Genomics and Translational Biology (now the Council on Genomic and Precision Medicine).

Following her own recovery from severe mental illness, Fox has become a national advocate for improving access to mental healthcare and reducing stigma. Through public speaking, writing, filmmaking and her work with the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health's MAP-D Project and The Brookline Center for Community Mental Health, she brings together science, lived experience and storytelling to advance patient-centered care.