Markella Zanni

About Markella Zanni

Markella V. Zanni, MD, is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Women’s Health Research in the Metabolism Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Markella was born in the US to parents who emigrated from Greece.

Markella studied English literature at Harvard University, writing a prize-winning senior thesis and graduating summa cum laude with election to Phi Beta Kappa. While at Harvard University, she also appeared in many dramatic productions and served on the fiction board of the Harvard Advocate. After college, Markella went on to pursue an MD at Harvard Medical School and was selected by her peers to deliver the student Commencement address, which was later published. Markella completed a Residency in Internal Medicine at Brigham & Women's Hospital (BWH) in Boston, where she was awarded the Dunne Award for compassion and dedication to patient care. She was also selected to serve as Chief Medical Resident at BWH. During her fellowship training in Endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, she received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Currently, Markella's faculty-level clinical work and scientific research is based out of MGH/Mass General Brigham (MGB). Along with her colleagues in the MGB Pituitary Center, she cares for patients with pituitary and hypothalamic diseases. Further, as Director of Women’s Health Research in the MGH Metabolism Unit, Markella leads a clinical-translational research program focused on elucidating immune and hormonal processes predisposing aging women to myocardial infarction and heart failure. The goal of her research is to identify novel, sex-specific cardiometabolic disease prevention strategies. Markella has served as Principal Investigator of numerous research grants awarded by the NIH. Her original research findings have been published in scientific journals across disciplines, and she has been recognized with the Claflin Distinguished Scholar Award at MGH. Markella sustains a strong commitment to research mentoring. She is the recipient of the Stephen Calderwood Excellence in Mentoring Award from the MGH Department of Medicine, the Award for Excellence in Research Mentoring from the MGH Internal Medicine Residency Program, and a Research Mentoring Award from the Boston Area Nutrition Obesity Research Center.

Markella and her husband, David, have a son and two daughters.