UB’s Curtis receives the Virginia Kneeland Frantz ’22 Award for Distinguished Women in Medicine from Columbia University

BUFFALO, N.Y. –Anne B. Curtis, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, received the Virginia Kneeland Frantz ’22 Award for Distinguished Women in Medicine from her alma mater, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S).

She received the award last weekend during the VP&S annual reunion, where a short video was shown about what has inspired her during her medical career.

According to Columbia University, the award “recognizes an alumna of VP&S who has made significant accomplishments in scientific research or clinical care” and is “a tribute to the invaluable contributions of women in medicine.”

Curtis is one of the world's leading clinical cardiac electrophysiologists and an expert in cardiac arrhythmias. She played a key role in developing national treatment guidelines for managing atrial fibrillation, a heart rhythm disorder that can cause fatigue, shortness of breath, exercise intolerance, and can even lead to heart failure. She has also served on the writing committees for national and international guidelines and consensus statements on ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death, ablation for atrial fibrillation, sex differences in cardiac arrhythmias, and cardiac physiological pacing.

Her research interests include clinical trials in implantable device therapy, including defibrillators and cardiac resynchronization therapy; sex and racial disparities in the management of patients with arrhythmias; and clinical research in atrial fibrillation. In addition to holding leadership positions on steering committees, executive committees, and data and safety monitoring boards for multicenter clinical trials, Curtis was the national principal investigator on a study of heart failure patients with atrioventricular block.

She was recruited to UB to serve as the Charles and Mary Bower Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine in the Jacobs School in 2010, a position she held until 2022.

Curtis is both a clinician, caring for patients at UBMD Internal medicine, and a Jacobs School researcher specializing in clinical cardiac electrophysiology, the field of cardiology that studies, diagnoses and treats disorders of the electrical activity of the heart muscle.

Curtis received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Rutgers University and her MD from Columbia University VP&S. She did her residency in internal medicine at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and fellowships in cardiovascular disease and clinical cardiac electrophysiology at Duke University Medical Center.

She is immediate past president of the Association of Professors of Medicine, an organization that represents the leadership of departments of internal medicine across the United States and Canada. She is a past president of the Heart Rhythm Society and a recipient of their Distinguished Service Award and their President’s Award. She is also past president of the Cardiac Electrophysiology Society and the Association of University Cardiologists and the former chair of the Food and Drug Administration's Circulatory System Devices Panel.

Last year, Curtis was honored with the 2024 Dr. Carolyn McCue Award for Woman Cardiologist of the Year at the Heart Health in Women Symposium.

Curtis has over 350 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and reviews.