Our Bureau
New Haven, CT
Yale School of Medicine recently announced that Pooja Khatri, MD, MS, has been appointed as the chair of the Department of Neurology and chief of neurology at Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale New Haven Health System, effective April 1, 2025.
With 20 years of sustained NIH and industry funding, Dr. Khatri’s contributions have encompassed acute stroke therapy, prevention of early stroke recurrence, radiological biomarker development, and clinical trial design. She demonstrated the time-dependence of endovascular therapy to improve clinical outcomes after stroke.
Her current NIH-funded research includes the first platform trial in stroke, a dose-finding trial for a novel clot dissolving monoclonal antibody, an acute biomarker validation study for stroke motor recovery, and characterization of population-level radiological brain health in stroke patients. She also leads an investigator-initiated, industry-funded trial of endovascular therapy for patients with reduced stroke severity.
With almost 300 publications, Dr. Khatri was recently identified among the Top 1% of Highly Cited Researchers in the World by Clarivate (Web of Science). She also has broad expertise and experience in drug and device therapeutic development from conception to post-marketing phases, including translational, study design, regulatory, safety, and ethical aspects.
Dr. Khatri has received several teaching awards such as the Middle East & North Africa Stroke Organization (MENASO) Education Award. An internationally recognized expert in clinical stroke, Dr. Khatri has held leadership roles on the World Stroke Organization (WSO) Executive Committee, the Stroke Council of the American Heart Association (AHA), and the European Stroke Organisation’s (ESO) Guidelines Board, and she has been a member of the American Academy of Neurology and the Society for Clinical Trials.
Currently, Dr. Khatri is professor of neurology and rehabilitation medicine and vice chair of research within the Department of Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine. She is also associate director for clinical research of the Stroke Center of Excellence at the UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute.
Since 2013, Dr. Khatri has also co-directed the National Coordinating Center of National Institutes of Health (NIH) StrokeNet, the primary infrastructure for multicenter trials of stroke funded by NIH, harnessing the leadership and experience of the stroke field to efficiently develop and implement studies spanning prevention, treatment, and recovery.
Dr. Khatri earned a bachelor of science with honors in biological sciences from Stanford University and a medical degree with honors from University of Illinois at Chicago. She completed an internship and neurology residency at University of Pennsylvania and a vascular neurology fellowship at University of Cincinnati through the NIH Specialized Program of Translational Research in Acute Stroke. She also earned a master of science in clinical epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health.
