The first non-physician to lead an academic division of palliative medicine in the United States, Dio Kavalieratos, PhD, FAAHPM also serves as the Director of Research for the Emory Palliative Care Center.
Effective September 1, 2025, Dr. Dio Kavalieratos has been appointed the new Director of the Division of Palliative Medicine. The first non-physician to lead an academic division of palliative medicine in the United States, Dr. Kavalieratos also serves as the Director of Research for the Emory Palliative Care Center. Since joining Emory in 2020, he has grown the Division’s research faculty from zero to seven funded investigators, launched the Emory Serious Illness Innovation Incubator to cultivate clinician–researcher partnerships, and secured multiple grants and gifts of more than >$1M to expand Emory’s capacity as a national hub for palliative care science and training. He has built a thriving, multidisciplinary research program at Emory focused on advancing serious illness care. A dedicated mentor, Dr. Kavalieratos guides trainees and early-career faculty across disciplines and backgrounds in developing clinical scholarship and QI, securing grants and career development awards, and launching independent research careers. He was named a 2022 Sojourns Scholar by the Cambia Health Foundation for his commitment to supporting the next generation of palliative care scientists and clinician-scientists and continues to lead efforts to expand research training and mentoring infrastructure at Emory and beyond. He completed advanced coursework in leadership coaching from the Goizueta Business School and provides coaching services primarily to early- and mid-career academics.
As Division Director, Dr. Kavalieratos says, “My goal is to ensure that every faculty and staff member in the Division of Palliative Medicine has the mentorship, structure, and resources needed to thrive as scholars, clinicians, educators, and leaders. We will build a comprehensive suite of training and mentoring programs to guide Division members of all stages towards their highest potential, including structured faculty development, a Division-wide academic skills bootcamp, a mentoring academy for senior faculty, expanded clinical and research fellowships, and staff professional development programming. He also expressed his deep appreciation to Dr. Tammie Quest “for her visionary and inclusive leadership as the inaugural Division Director, launching the foundation for academic palliative care at Emory. A true champion for palliative care at her core, Dr. Quest was instrumental in developing the Division, growing its faculty, all the while advocating for equity in all forms. Under her guidance, the Division has become a recognized powerhouse in clinical excellence and training, creating the strong platform upon which we will continue to build to serve people with serious illness and their families in Georgia and beyond.”
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. Dr. Kavalieratos is a health services researcher who 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 >$10M 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. 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 on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine