N. Stuart Harris, M.D., is the founder and Chief of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Division of Wilderness Medicine and the Director of the MGH Wilderness Medicine Fellowship. He is a full-time attending physician in the MGH Emergency Department and an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). He graduated from the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency in 2003.

Harris' research focuses on investigating the pathogenesis and treatment of acute hypoxia/ high altitude illness and on the interplay between climate change and human health. His drive to increase physician awareness of the interaction between environmental degradation and individual and public health has led to the creation of the first Wilderness Medicine Fellowship at MGH. He has been conducting research with the Himalayan Rescue Association in the Mt. Everest region since 1999 and the U.S. Army’s Research Institute for Environmental Medicine since 2004.

The Division’s research teams are active on Mt. Kilimanjaro, in the Andes, far Eastern Siberia, Alaska, on mitochondrial dysfunction (Drs. Zapol, Mootha, and Berra) and in the MGH ED (NO COV-ED trial PI — using inhaled nitric oxide to treat acute COVID). In 2011, he worked a Denali National Park climbing ranger patrol where he performed the first ultrasound imaging on a summit of N. America. He works closely with the Wood Hole Research Center. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. DOD, MGH, and HMS.