Shri Deshpande currently serves as the Medical Director for the Advanced Cardiac Therapies and Heart Transplant Program at Children’s National Hospital and Professor of Pediatrics at George Washington University, Washington DC. He serves as the current President for the Pediatric Heart Transplant Society and on various academic committees for prestigious organizations such as the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology amongst others.

He has published over a hundred peer reviewed research papers, served on writing committees for various guidelines and statement papers and more than 120 conference presentations and invited lectures. His research focuses on heart failure management in children, mechanical circulatory support and heart transplantation, including major focus on technology and human interactions. He has led significant collaborative research that has focused on improving our understanding of clotting complications in the circuit and improving the outcomes via development of new technology. He has also been part of the team that has developed blood-based tests for detection of rejection in heart transplantation instead of invasive biopsies. This research was supported by NIH/NHLBI and has led to the development of a commercial assay. He is part of transplant related drug trials and is also developing new methods for analyzing the biopsies in transplant patients using advance image analysis and AI techniques.

He currently serves on various advisory boards including non-profits and healthcare startups. He is dedicated to clinical program development across the globe through education and mentorship. He is passionate about improving how we work in the healthcare system and what innovative organizational leadership should look like.