Alexander A. Hannenberg, MD

Alexander A. Hannenberg is senior research scientist at Ariadne Labs, a health systems innovation center at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and Brigham & Women’s Hospital where he works on surgical safety programs including checklists for critical event management. He led the development of a simulation-based, low resource teamwork training project for the American Hospital Association’s Team Training program and adapted for the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality’s TeamSTEPPS program and for the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation’s Workplace Violence curriculum.

Hannenberg was the 2010 president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists and recently served as its Chief Quality Officer. He was chosen by the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation to deliver the annual Ellison C. Pierce Jr. Patient Safety Lecture in 2016.  In 2011, he joined with an international group of surgeons and anesthesiologists to create the Lifebox foundation, a charity focused on improving outcomes of surgery and anesthesia globally: “Saving Lives Through Safer Surgery.”  He remains an officer of the foundation.  He also led the creation of the Anesthesia Quality Institute and its National Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes Registry, the ASA Charitable Foundation and its Global Scholar Program and, while on the board of the Foundation for Anesthesia Education & Research, he launched the Medical Student Anesthesia Research Fellowship.  He served more than a decade on the board of the national Council on Surgical & Perioperative Safety and was its chair.

He is Adjunct Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology at Tufts University School of Medicine.  Hannenberg received his undergraduate education at Vassar College, his medical degree from Tufts University and completed residency training at Beth Israel Hospital (Harvard Medical School).

He has been recognized for his work with ASA’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award and was elected to Honorary Membership in the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland.