Cathleen Noel Bairey Merz MD, FACC, FAHA, FESC

Cathleen Noel Bairey Merz is Director of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center, the Linda Joy Pollin Women’s Heart Health Program, the Erika J. Glazer Women’s Heart Research Initiative, and the Preventive Cardiac Center at the Smidt Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute. She is also Professor of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Dr. Bairey Merz’s research interests include women and cardiovascular disease, mental stress and heart disease, the role of exercise and stress management in reversing disease, the role of cholesterol and nutrition management in heart disease, adverse pregnancy outcomes and cardiovascular disease, and precision medicine monitoring to predict unexpected cardiovascular events. She is chair of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)-sponsored WISE (Women’s Ischemic Syndrome Evaluation) initiative, which is investigating potential methods for more effective diagnosis and evaluation of ischemic heart disease in women.

Dr. Bairey Merz has received investigational grants from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), NIH-National Center for Alternative and Complementary Medicine (NCCAM), the National Institutes of Aging (NIA), the Flight Attendants Medical Research Institute, the Pfeiffer Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the Barbra Streisand Foundation, the Erika J. Glazer Women’s Heart Research Initiative, the Society for Women’s Health Research, the Linda Joy Pollin Women’s Heart Health Program, and the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program of the Department of Defense.

Dr. Bairey Merz received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago and her medical degree from Harvard University. She completed her residency at the University of California, San Francisco, where she served as Chief Medical Resident. Dr. Bairey Merz also completed fellowships in clinical cardiology and nuclear cardiology and served as Chief Cardiology Fellow at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.