Mary Charlson, MD, is the William T. Foley Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluative Sciences Research at Weill Cornell Medical College.  She chairs the Master of Science in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Services Research degree at WMC.

As a clinical epidemiologist, her work focuses on developing novel interventions targeted at improving outcomesin patients with chronic illness. She has conducted 8 successful RCTs among 2,200 patients with chronic illness, with a significant focus on patient centered interventions to increase self-management.  The most recent PCORI cluster RCT involves 1,920 patients from 16 Federally Qualified Health Centers with high comorbidity to reduce unplanned hospitalizations andreduce disability by focusing on life goals and health coaches.  She developed the Charlson Comorbidity Index to predict mortality, now cited over 40,000 times. Most recently, she developed a new Comorbidity Health Analytics measure that predicts hospitalizations and costs.