Lisa VanWagner, M.D.

Biography

Lisa VanWagner, M.D., M.Sc., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She specializes in liver transplantation medicine, fatty liver disease, and cardiac cirrhosis.

Dr. VanWagner earned her medical degree at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville. She completed a residency in internal medicine at Northwestern University's McGaw Medical Center in Chicago, where she served as Chief Resident and obtained a master's degree in clinical investigation. She remained at Northwestern to gain advanced training through a fellowship in gastroenterology and hepatology, followed by an advanced fellowship program in transplant hepatology. She also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in big data and cardiovascular risk prediction at Northwestern.

Certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in internal medicine, gastroenterology and hepatology, and transplant hepatology, she joined the UT Southwestern faculty in 2022. Previously, she served as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

At UT Southwestern, Dr. VanWagner’s clinical practice focuses on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)/nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a condition associated with high cardiovascular risk; patients with liver disease due to congenital heart disease or heart failure; and patients undergoing heart-liver transplantation.

She also serves as Director of Clinical Research for the Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases. Her clinical research laboratory utilizes human population-based approaches, large electronic health record data analysis, and health services research methods to define and characterize cardiometabolic disease risk prediction, prevention, and treatment approaches in patients with chronic liver disease.

Dr. VanWagner's scientific work has garnered awards from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, the European Association for the Study of the Liver, the American Society of Transplantation, and the American Heart Association. She has published more than 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts and has received National Institutes of Health, foundation, and industry funding to support her research. She is an Associate Editor of Liver Transplantation and sits on the editorial board of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Communications; she also serves as an ad hoc reviewer for numerous other scholarly journals.

A Fellow of the American Heart Association and the American Society of Transplantation, Dr. VanWagner is also an active member of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, the American Gastroenterological Association, the European Association for the Study of the Liver, and the International Liver Transplantation Society.

Personal Note

During her free time, Dr. VanWagner enjoys cooking, traveling, and spending time with her family.