Dr. Pierson is a Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and MGH, where he participates clinically in thoracic transplantation and cardiac surgical intensive care.   He received his medical training at Columbia University, University of Michigan, Massachusetts General Hospital, and at Cambridge University in England.  He worked at Vanderbilt for 8 years and University of Maryland in Baltimore for 16 before being recruited back to MGH in 2017.  Dr. Pierson holds the Austen Chair in Cardiac Surgery at MGH, where he is also the Scientific Director of the Center for Transplantation Sciences.  He is an established NIH-funded investigator in tolerance induction for cardiac allografts, and the immunobiology of heart, liver, kidney, and lung xenotransplantation.  He is the author of over 200 peer-reviewed original scientific papers, review articles, and book chapters.  He is a past president of the International Xenotransplantation Association (2007-09), and current IXA Ethics Committee Chair.