James de Lemos, M.D.
Titles and Appointments
Professor & Division Chief
- Endowed Title
- Sweetheart Ball - Kern Wildenthal, M.D., Ph.D., Distinguished Chair in Cardiology
- School
- Medical School
- Department
- Internal Medicine | Public Health
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James de Lemos, M.D., is a Professor of in the Department of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center and Chief of the Division of Cardiology.
Originally from Riverside, California, Dr. de Lemos holds a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from the University of Texas at Austin, where he graduated summa cum laude. He received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed internal medicine residency training at UT Southwestern, where he served as Chief Resident. He then obtained advanced training in cardiovascular medicine and served on the faculty at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston before returning to join the UT Southwestern faculty as an Assistant Professor in 2000. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2005.
From 2005 until 2009, he held the J. Fred Schoellkopf Jr. Chair in Cardiology Research. Then, in 2009, he became the Sweetheart Ball-Kern Wildenthal, M.D., Ph.D. Distinguished Chair in Cardiology. Dr. de Lemos was promoted to Professor in 2011. In 2018, the UT Board of Regents named him a Distinguished Teaching Professor. He became Chief of the Division of Cardiology in 2023.
Dr. de Lemos is active in clinical research, focusing on early detection, risk assessment, and management of cardiovascular disease, with a particular interest in the role of cardiovascular biomarkers. He currently serves as Principal Investigator for the Dallas Heart Study, a multiethnic population-based study of more than 6,000 adults, and has played a major leadership role in this study for more than 20 years. He has mentored more than 30 postdoctoral research trainees and authored or co-authored over 400 original research articles.
His commitment to education and training is exemplified by involvement with the Cardiovascular Fellowship Program, and by his multiple local and national teaching and mentorship awards, including the 2015 Women in Cardiology Mentoring Award from the American Heart Association (AHA), the 2020 Distinguished Mentor Award from the American College of Cardiology (ACC), and the 2021 Award of Meritorious Achievement from the AHA. Dr. Additionally, he was elected a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation in 2014 and the American Association of Physicians in 2017.
Dr. de Lemos has also served the profession beyond UT Southwestern, holding positions on multiple committees of the AHA and ACC, including the STEMI Guideline Committee, and as Chair of the Research and Publications Committee for the NCDR ACTION-GWTG registry, and most recently as PI for the AHA’s COVID 19 Cardiovascular Disease Registry. He has been a standing member of the FDA’s Cardiorenal Advisory Panel and is currently serving on the FDA’s Endocrine and Metabolic Panel. Additionally, he is the Executive Editor for Circulation, and has previously served on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the American Journal of Cardiology and the American Heart Journal.
Personal Note
Outside of medicine, Dr. de Lemos is an avid sports fan and has a wife and three children.
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