Caroline Burns PhD

Dr. Caroline E. Burns received her BS from Wofford College after which she completed her PhD at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Cell Biology. She then pursued her long-standing interests in development and disease by studying hematopoietic stem cell specification in the laboratory of Dr. Leonard I. Zon at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Burns was recruited to the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in 2007 as an Assistant Professor of Medicine where she started her independent research program focused on understanding how the cardiovascular system develops and regenerates using the zebrafish model organism.

Dr. Burns was promoted to Associate Professor of Medicine in 2016 and her work has been recognized by multiple awards including, the Hassenfeld Prize from MGH for excellence in cardiovascular research, the Basil O’Connor Prize from the March of Dimes for congenital heart defect research, and the d’Arbeloff Scholar Prize from MGH for outstanding contributions to research. She is currently a faculty member in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences graduate school program at Harvard Medical School, a faculty member in the Developmental and Regenerative Biology program at Harvard University, a principal faculty member in the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and a member of the American Heart Association.