Dio Kavalieratos

Dio Kavalieratos, PhD FAAHPM is the Director of the Division of Palliative Medicine within the Emory University School of Medicine. The first non-physician to lead a division of palliative medicine in the United States, he also serves as the Director of Research for the Emory Palliative Care Center, the clinical service delivery counterpart to the academic division he directs. Dr. Kavalieratos is a health services researcher whose program investigates and intervenes upon the sources of suffering that people living with serious illness and their families experience, the healthcare decisions they make, and the care that they ultimately receive (or do not).  His own portfolio of science spans clinical trials, symptom science, mixed-methods research, informatics, and social determinants of health, with studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and other leading organizations. Largely, his work involves the development and testing of models of palliative care delivery and integration, as well as cutting-edge transdisciplinary investigations of whole-person symptom burden and experience. With more than 120 publications, his work appears in leading journals such as JAMA, BMJ, and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. His portfolio of international leadership in serious illness includes co-directing two clinical practice guidelines committees for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and serving for four years as Scientific Chair for the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine annual assembly. 

Dr. Kavalieratos earned his PhD in Health Policy and Management from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Health Services Research at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the recipient of numerous honors, including the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine’s Early Career Investigator Award as well as awards for his mentoring. He serves on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and is a former Associate Editor of the Journal of Palliative Medicine.