About

I am a neurologist with established expertise in the medical and surgical treatment of movement disorders, with a focus on long-term outcomes in essential tremor and Parkinson's disease.

I graduated from Stanford University with a BS in biological sciences with honors and obtained my MD from University of California, Los Angeles, graduating with Alpha Omega Alpha honors. I completed internship in medicine, neurology residency, and movement disorders fellowship at Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). I joined the faculty at HMS in 2007 as Instructor, completing my MMSc in 2010 in Clinical Investigation through the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Clinical Investigator Training Program. Prior leadership roles held have included Director of the Deep Brain Stimulation Program at BIDMC as well as Director of the Movement Disorders Fellowship Program.

I worked in early research and development at Biogen and Vertex Pharmaceuticals from 2017-2020, where I filed an investigational new drug application (IND) for an antisense oligonucleotide for Parkinson's disease, worked on a global phase 2 study of an alpha-synuclein antibody for PD, and led studies implementing digital outcome assessments alongside traditional clinical and biomarker endpoints in PD and spinocerebellar ataxias (SCA1, SCA2 and SCA3). In addition, I helped sponsor several academic-industry collaborations and evaluated new drug programs for the neurology portfolio.

I also have a long-standing interest in treating people with ET, including the diagnosis, clinical management, and investigation of novel therapies for ET. Our research focuses on assessing the impact of new medical and surgical treatments for ET, including deep brain stimulation, as well as validation of clinical tools to assess ET and its impact on quality of life and activities of daily living. 

ET and parkinsonism are both movement disorders of aging and can be difficult to distinguish clinically from each other and from other neurodegenerative disorders. I started tremor and parkinsonism surveillance in the Brain Aging Program (1U19AG068753) of the Framingham Heart Study, the longest-running NIH-funded epidemiologic cohort. Our team studies the intersection between motor and cognitive aging and brain health.

I serve on eligibility adjudication committees for global ET clinical trials, serve on the Medical Advisory Board for the International Essential Tremor Foundation, and have been an executive member of the Tremor Research Group, an international society of academic tremor investigators, and serve on the Steering Committee of the Tremor Study Group for the Movement Disorders Society, and serve on the International Association for Parkinsonism and Related Disorders tremor guidelines committee. I also serve as Associate Editor for the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, one of the two journals for the American Neurological Association.

For student and post-doctoral research opportunities, consulting, and collaboration, please contact me at lshih@bidmc.harvard.edu