Geoff Tison, MD, MPH

Associate Professor

Geoff Tison, M.D. M.P.H. is a Cardiologist, Associate Professor in the Division of Cardiology at UCSF and Co-Director of the UCSF Center for Biosignal Research. Dr. Tison earned his Sc.B. in Neuroscience at Brown University and received his M.D. and M.P.H. degrees from the Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine and Public Health. He completed internal medicine residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and subsequently completed fellowships in clinical cardiology, advanced echocardiography and preventive cardiology at UCSF. He also served as the first UCSF “Digital Cardiology” fellow, where his efforts were focused on validating and improving various digital, mobile and medical-device-based technologies to achieve the greatest impact in clinical care and medical research.

Research Interests: Dr. Tison brings expertise in clinical research, advanced machine learning algorithms and digital health to bear to further his research goals in cardiovascular disease prevention. An expert in machine learning and artificial intelligence as applied to medicine, he obtained formal training in epidemiology, statistical methods, machine learning and clinical research during his tenure at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and as a National Institutes of Health T32 scholar. He has led multiple research projects in large cohorts such as the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and the Women’s Health Initiative. Dr. Tison is an investigator in the UCSF Health eHeart study and leads several clinical research studies at UCSF. Dr. Tison’s current interests include applying machine learning and deep-learning techniques to large-scale electronic health data from heterogeneous sources in order to achieve the goal of personalized cardiovascular prognosis and disease prevention.

Clinical Interests: Dr. Tison is a non-invasive cardiologist with expertise in preventive cardiology and advanced echocardiography, including applications of transesophageal echocardiography in structural interventions such as transcatheter aortic valve replacement.

Publications

  1. Nateghi Haredasht F, Kim D, Romano JD, Tison G, Daneshjou R, Chen JH. Session Introduction: AI and Machine Learning in Clinical Medicine: Generative and Interactive Systems at the Human-Machine Interface. Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing. Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing 2025. PMID: 39670359


  2. Cunningham JW, Abraham WT, Bhatt AS, Dunn J, Felker GM, Jain SS, Lindsell CJ, Mace M, Martyn T, Shah RU, Tison GH, Fakhouri T, Psotka MA, Krumholz H, Fiuzat M, O'Connor CM, Solomon SD, Heart Failure Collaboratory. Artificial Intelligence in Cardiovascular Clinical Trials. Journal of the American College of Cardiology 2024. PMID: 39505413


  3. Yurk D, Barrios JP, Labrecque Langlais E, Avram R, Aras MA, Abu-Mostafa Y, Padmanabhan A, Tison GH. Automated Assessment of Right Atrial Pressure From Ultrasound Videos Using Machine Learning. JACC. Advances 2024. PMID: 39372459


  4. Brundage J, Barrios JP, Tison GH, Pirruccello JP. Genetics of Cardiac Aging Implicate Organ-Specific Variation. medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences 2024. PMID: 39148824


  5. Labrecque Langlais É, Corbin D, Tastet O, Hayek A, Doolub G, Mrad S, Tardif JC, Tanguay JF, Marquis-Gravel G, Tison GH, Kadoury S, Le W, Gallo R, Lesage F, Avram R. Evaluation of stenoses using AI video models applied to coronary angiography. NPJ digital medicine 2024. PMID: 38783037


  6. Barrios JP, Seshadri MR, Tison GH. Artificial Intelligence to Complement, Not Replace, Clinical Knowledge: Reading Between the Lines. JACC. CardioOncology 2024. PMID: 38774016


  7. Elias P, Jain S, Poterucha T, Randazzo M, Lopez Jimenez F, Khera R, Perez M, Ouyang D, Pirruccello J, Salerno M, Einstein A, Avram R, Tison G, Nadkarni G, Natarajan V, Pierson E, Beecy A, Kumaraiah D, Haggerty C, Avari Silva JN, Maddox TM. Artificial Intelligence for Cardiovascular Care - Part 1: Advances: JACC Review Topic of the Week. Journal of the American College of Cardiology 2024. PMID: 38593946


  8. Jain S, Elias P, Poterucha T, Randazzo M, Lopez Jimenez F, Khera R, Perez M, Ouyang D, Pirruccello J, Salerno M, Einstein A, Avram R, Tison G, Nadkarni G, Natarajan V, Pierson E, Beecy A, Kumaraiah D, Haggerty C, Avari Silva JN, Maddox TM. Artificial Intelligence in Cardiovascular Care - Part 2: Applications: JACC Review Topic of the Week. Journal of the American College of Cardiology 2024. PMID: 38593945


  9. Antiperovitch P, Mortara D, Barrios J, Avram R, Yee K, Khaless AN, Cristal A, Tison G, Olgin J. Continuous Atrial Fibrillation Monitoring From Photoplethysmography: Comparison Between Supervised Deep Learning and Heuristic Signal Processing. JACC. Clinical electrophysiology 2024. PMID: 38340117


  10. Butler L, Karabayir I, Kitzman DW, Alonso A, Tison GH, Chen LY, Chang PP, Clifford G, Soliman EZ, Akbilgic O. A generalizable electrocardiogram-based artificial intelligence model for 10-year heart failure risk prediction. Cardiovascular digital health journal 2023. PMID: 38222101


  11. Siontis KC, Abreau S, Attia ZI, Barrios JP, Dewland TA, Agarwal P, Balasubramanyam A, Li Y, Lester SJ, Masri A, Wang A, Sehnert AJ, Edelberg JM, Abraham TP, Friedman PA, Olgin JE, Noseworthy PA, Tison GH. Patient-Level Artificial Intelligence-Enhanced Electrocardiography in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy: Longitudinal Treatment and Clinical Biomarker Correlations. JACC. Advances 2023. PMID: 38076758


  12. Avram R, Olgin JE, Ahmed Z, Verreault-Julien L, Wan A, Barrios J, Abreau S, Wan D, Gonzalez JE, Tardif JC, So DY, Soni K, Tison GH. CathAI: fully automated coronary angiography interpretation and stenosis estimation. NPJ digital medicine 2023. PMID: 37568050


  13. Tison GH, Abreau S, Barrios J, Lim LJ, Yang M, Crudo V, Shah DJ, Nguyen T, Hu G, Dixit S, Nah G, Arya F, Bibby D, Lee Y, Delling FN. Identifying Mitral Valve Prolapse at Risk for Arrhythmias and Fibrosis From Electrocardiograms Using Deep Learning. JACC. Advances 2023. PMID: 37936601


  14. Higuchi S, Li R, Gerstenfeld EP, Liem LB, Im SI, Kalantarian S, Ansari M, Abreau S, Barrios J, Scheinman MM, Tison GH. Identification of supraventricular tachycardia mechanisms with surface electrocardiograms using a convolutional neural network. Heart rhythm O2 2023. PMID: 37645266


  15. Zheng Y, Zhang Y, Huang H, Tison GH, Burke LE, Blecker S, Dickson VV, Olgin JE, Marcus GM, Pletcher MJ. Interindividual Variability in Self-Monitoring of Blood Pressure Using Consumer-Purchased Wireless Devices. Nursing research 2023. PMID: 37350699


  16. Avram R, Barrios JP, Abreau S, Goh CY, Ahmed Z, Chung K, So DY, Olgin JE, Tison GH. Automated Assessment of Cardiac Systolic Function From Coronary Angiograms With Video-Based Artificial Intelligence Algorithms. JAMA cardiology 2023. PMID: 37163297


  17. Chaudhari GR, Mayfield JJ, Barrios JP, Abreau S, Avram R, Olgin JE, Tison GH. Deep learning augmented ECG analysis to identify biomarker-defined myocardial injury. Scientific Reports 2023. PMID: 36849487


  18. Aras MA, Abreau S, Mills H, Radhakrishnan L, Klein L, Mantri N, Rubin B, Barrios J, Chehoud C, Kogan E, Gitton X, Nnewihe A, Quinn D, Bridges C, Butte AJ, Olgin JE, Tison GH. Electrocardiogram Detection of Pulmonary Hypertension Using Deep Learning. Journal of cardiac failure 2023. PMID: 36706977


  19. Barrios JP, Tison GH. Advancing cardiovascular medicine with machine learning: Progress, potential, and perspective. Cell reports. Medicine 2022. PMID: 36543095


  20. Tison GH, Barrios J, Avram R, Kuhar P, Bostjancic B, Marcus GM, Pletcher MJ, Olgin JE. Worldwide physical activity trends since COVID-19 onset. The Lancet. Global health 2022. PMID: 36057269


  21. Elias P, Poterucha TJ, Rajaram V, Moller LM, Rodriguez V, Bhave S, Hahn RT, Tison G, Abreau SA, Barrios J, Torres JN, Hughes JW, Perez MV, Finer J, Kodali S, Khalique O, Hamid N, Schwartz A, Homma S, Kumaraiah D, Cohen DJ, Maurer MS, Einstein AJ, Nazif T, Leon MB, Perotte AJ. Deep Learning Electrocardiographic Analysis for Detection of Left-Sided Valvular Heart Disease. Journal of the American College of Cardiology 2022. PMID: 35926935


  22. Tison GH, Siontis KC, Abreau S, Attia Z, Agarwal P, Balasubramanyam A, Li Y, Sehnert AJ, Edelberg JM, Friedman PA, Olgin JE, Noseworthy PA, PIONEER-OLE Investigators. Assessment of Disease Status and Treatment Response With Artificial Intelligence-Enhanced Electrocardiography in Obstructive Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. 2015 Year Book of Pediatrics. Ed. Cabana MD. (Elsevier; Philadelphia, PA) 2022. PMID: 35272798


  23. Tison GH. Using machine learning to uncover heterogeneity of beta blocker response in heart failure. 2015 Year Book of Pediatrics. Ed. Cabana MD. (Elsevier; Philadelphia, PA) 2022. PMID: 35106513


  24. Hughes JW, Olgin JE, Avram R, Abreau SA, Sittler T, Radia K, Hsia H, Walters T, Lee B, Gonzalez JE, Tison GH. Performance of a Convolutional Neural Network and Explainability Technique for 12-Lead Electrocardiogram Interpretation. JAMA cardiology 2021. PMID: 34347007


  25. Lin A, Vittinghoff E, Olgin J, Peyser N, Aung S, Joyce S, Yang V, Hwang J, Avram R, Nah G, Tison GH, Beatty A, Runge R, Wen D, Butcher X, Horner C, Eitel H, Pletcher M, Marcus GM. Predictors of incident SARS-CoV-2 infections in an international prospective cohort study. BMJ open 2021. PMID: 34548363


  26. Tison GH, Avram R, Nah G, Klein L, Howard BV, Allison MA, Casanova R, Blair RH, Breathett K, Foraker RE, Olgin JE, Parikh NI. Predicting incident heart failure in women with machine learning: The Women's Health Initiative Cohort. The Canadian journal of cardiology 2021. PMID: 34400272


  27. Marcus GM, Olgin JE, Peyser ND, Vittinghoff E, Yang V, Joyce S, Avram R, Tison GH, Wen D, Butcher X, Eitel H, Pletcher MJ. Predictors of incident viral symptoms ascertained in the era of COVID-19. PloS one 2021. PMID: 34138915


  30. Oni-Orisan A, Srinivas N, Mehta K, Lohy Das J, Nguyen TT, Tison GH, Bauer SR, Burian M, Funk RS, Graham RA. Leveraging innovative technology to generate drug response phenotypes for the advancement of biomarker-driven precision dosing. Clinical and translational science 2021. PMID: 33421282


  31. Beagle AJ, Tison GH, Aschbacher K, Olgin JE, Marcus GM, Pletcher MJ. Comparison of the Physical Activity Measured by a Consumer Wearable Activity Tracker and That Measured by Self-Report: Cross-Sectional Analysis of the Health eHeart Study. JMIR mHealth and uHealth 2020. PMID: 33372896


  32. Papolos A, Tison GH, Mayfield J, Vasti E, DeMarco T. Echocardiographic assessment of pulmonary arterial capacitance predicts mortality in pulmonary hypertension. Journal of cardiology 2020. PMID: 33158713


  33. Rosenthal DG, Vittinghoff E, Tison GH, Pletcher MJ, Olgin JE, Grandis DJ, Marcus GM. Assessment of Accelerometer-Based Physical Activity During the 2017-2018 California Wildfire Seasons. JAMA network open 2020. PMID: 32997120


  34. Sengupta PP, Shrestha S, Berthon B, Messas E, Donal E, Tison GH, Min JK, D'hooge J, Voigt JU, Dudley J, Verjans JW, Shameer K, Johnson K, Lovstakken L, Tabassian M, Piccirilli M, Pernot M, Yanamala N, Duchateau N, Kagiyama N, Bernard O, Slomka P, Deo R, Arnaout R. Proposed Requirements for Cardiovascular Imaging-Related Machine Learning Evaluation (PRIME): A Checklist: Reviewed by the American College of Cardiology Healthcare Innovation Council. JACC. Cardiovascular imaging 2020. PMID: 32912474


  35. Avram R, Olgin JE, Kuhar P, Hughes JW, Marcus GM, Pletcher MJ, Aschbacher K, Tison GH. A digital biomarker of diabetes from smartphone-based vascular signals. Nature medicine 2020. PMID: 32807931


  36. Tison GH, Avram R, Kuhar P, Abreau S, Marcus GM, Pletcher MJ, Olgin JE. Worldwide Effect of COVID-19 on Physical Activity: A Descriptive Study. Annals of internal medicine 2020. PMID: 32598162


  37. Semaan S, Dewland TA, Tison GH, Nah G, Vittinghoff E, Pletcher MJ, Olgin JE, Marcus GM. Physical activity and atrial fibrillation: Data from wearable fitness trackers. Heart rhythm 2020. PMID: 32354448


  38. Aschbacher K, Yilmaz D, Kerem Y, Crawford S, Benaron D, Liu J, Eaton M, Tison GH, Olgin JE, Li Y, Marcus GM. Atrial fibrillation detection from raw photoplethysmography waveforms: A deep learning application. Heart rhythm O2 2020. PMID: 34113853


  39. Lim LJ, Tison GH, Delling FN. Artificial Intelligence in Cardiovascular Imaging. Methodist DeBakey cardiovascular journal 2020. PMID: 32670474


  40. Avram R, Olgin JE, Tison GH. The Rise of Open-Sourced Machine Learning in Small and Imbalanced Datasets: Predicting In-Stent Restenosis. The Canadian journal of cardiology 2020. PMID: 32628923


  41. Mayfield JJ, Papolos A, Vasti E, De Marco T, Tison GH. Pulmonary arterial capacitance predicts outcomes in patients with pulmonary hypertension independent of race/ethnicity, sex, and etiology. Respiratory medicine 2020. PMID: 32056840


  42. Mishra RK, Tison GH, Fang Q, Scherzer R, Whooley MA, Schiller NB. Association of Machine Learning-Derived Phenogroupings of Echocardiographic Variables with Heart Failure in Stable Coronary Artery Disease: The Heart and Soul Study. Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography : official publication of the American Society of Echocardiography 2020. PMID: 31948711


  43. Tison GH, Marcus GM. Will the smartphone become a useful tool to promote physical activity? The Lancet Digital Health 2019. PMID:


  44. Tison GH, Marcus GM. Will the smartphone become a useful tool to promote physical activity? The Lancet. Digital health 2019. PMID: 33323203


  45. Tison GH, Zhang J, Delling FN, Deo RC. Automated and Interpretable Patient ECG Profiles for Disease Detection, Tracking, and Discovery. Circulation. Cardiovascular quality and outcomes 2019. PMID: 31525078


  46. Avram R, Tison GH, Aschbacher K, Kuhar P, Vittinghoff E, Butzner M, Runge R, Wu N, Pletcher MJ, Marcus GM, Olgin J. Real-world heart rate norms in the Health eHeart study. NPJ digital medicine 2019. PMID: 31304404


  47. Papolos A, Fan E, Wagle RR, Foster E, Boyle AJ, Yeghiazarians Y, MacGregor JS, Grossman W, Schiller NB, Ganz P, Tison GH. Echocardiographic determination of pulmonary arterial capacitance. The international journal of cardiovascular imaging 2019. PMID: 30968263


  48. Hannun AY, Rajpurkar P, Haghpanahi M, Tison GH, Bourn C, Turakhia MP, Ng AY. Publisher Correction: Cardiologist-level arrhythmia detection and classification in ambulatory electrocardiograms using a deep neural network. Nature medicine 2019. PMID: 30679787


  49. Zheng Y, Sereika SM, Burke LE, Olgin JE, Marcus GM, Aschbacher K, Tison GH, Pletcher MJ. Temporal patterns of self-weighing behavior and weight changes assessed by consumer purchased scales in the Health eHeart Study. Journal of behavioral medicine 2019. PMID: 30649648


  50. Hannun AY, Rajpurkar P, Haghpanahi M, Tison GH, Bourn C, Turakhia MP, Ng AY. Cardiologist-level arrhythmia detection and classification in ambulatory electrocardiograms using a deep neural network. Nature medicine 2019. PMID: 30617320


  51. Zhang J, Gajjala S, Agrawal P, Tison GH, Hallock LA, Beussink-Nelson L, Lassen MH, Fan E, Aras MA, Jordan C, Fleischmann KE, Melisko M, Qasim A, Shah SJ, Bajcsy R, Deo RC. Fully Automated Echocardiogram Interpretation in Clinical Practice. Circulation 2018. PMID: 30354459


  52. Tison GH, Chamberlain AM, Pletcher MJ, Dunlay SM, Weston SA, Killian JM, Olgin JE, Roger VL. Identifying heart failure using EMR-based algorithms. International journal of medical informatics 2018. PMID: 30409334


  53. Tison GH, Sanchez JM, Ballinger B, Singh A, Olgin JE, Pletcher MJ, Vittinghoff E, Lee ES, Fan SM, Gladstone RA, Mikell C, Sohoni N, Hsieh J, Marcus GM. Passive Detection of Atrial Fibrillation Using a Commercially Available Smartwatch. Volume 3 of Issue 5. 2018. PMID: 29562087


  54. Kianoush S, Al Rifai M, Cainzos-Achirica M, Al-Mallah MH, Tison GH, Yeboah J, Miedema MD, Allison MA, Wong ND, DeFilippis AP, Longstreth W, Nasir K, Budoff MJ, Matsushita K, Blaha MJ. Thoracic extra-coronary calcification for the prediction of stroke: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis 2017. PMID: 29100062


  55. Maltz JS, Tison GH, Alley HF, Budinger TF, Owens CD, Olgin J. Measurement of brachial artery endothelial function using a standard blood pressure cuff. Volume 36 of Issue 11. 2015. PMID: 26393958


  56. Whitman IR, Pletcher MJ, Vittinghoff E, Imburgia KE, Maguire C, Bettencourt L, Sinha T, Parsnick T, Tison GH, Mulvanny CG, Olgin JE, Marcus GM. Perceptions, Information Sources, and Behavior Regarding Alcohol and Heart Health. Volume 116 of Issue 4. The American journal of cardiology 2015. PMID: 26092272


  57. Tison GH, Blaha MJ, Nasir K, Blumenthal RS, Szklo M, Ding J, Budoff MJ. Relation of Anthropometric Obesity and Computed Tomography Measured Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (from the Multiethnic Study of Atherosclerosis). The American journal of cardiology 2015. PMID: 26070222


  58. Tison GH, Guo M, Blaha MJ, McClelland RL, Allison MA, Szklo M, Wong ND, Blumenthal RS, Budoff MJ, Nasir K. Multisite extracoronary calcification indicates increased risk of coronary heart disease and all-cause mortality: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Journal of cardiovascular computed tomography 2015. PMID: 26043963


  59. Tison GH, Blaha MJ, Budoff MJ, Katz R, Rivera JJ, Bertoni AG, Wong ND, Blumenthal RS, Szklo M, Eng J, Tracy R, Nasir K. The relationship of insulin resistance and extracoronary calcification in the multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis 2011. PMID: 21798541


  60. Tison GH, Ndumele CE, Gerstenblith G, Allison MA, Polak JF, Szklo M. Usefulness of baseline obesity to predict development of a high ankle brachial index (from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis). The American journal of cardiology 2011. PMID: 21377643


  61. Tison GH, Blaha MJ, Nasir K. Atherosclerosis imaging in multiple vascular beds--enough heterogeneity to improve risk prediction? Atherosclerosis 2010. PMID: 21130991


  63. Xu J, Yeon JE, Chang H, Tison G, Chen GJ, Wands J, de la Monte S. Ethanol impairs insulin-stimulated neuronal survival in the developing brain: role of PTEN phosphatase. The Journal of biological chemistry 2003. PMID: 12700235