Joseph W. Carlson,

M.D., Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology M.D. Program, Cambridge, MA

Anatomic Pathology - Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA

Joseph W. Carlson, MD, PhD, serves as chief of the Division of Anatomic Pathology at City of Hope^® Cancer Center Duarte, where he also holds the appointment of professor of clinical pathology. With over 15 years of experience as a board-certified pathologist, Dr. Carlson is dedicated to ensuring that every cancer diagnosis is precise, comprehensive and delivered promptly, helping patients move from diagnosis to treatment as fast as possible. 

Dr. Carlson earned his medical degree through the Harvard–Massachusetts Institute of Technology Health Science and Technology program in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He went on to complete an internship and residency in anatomic pathology, followed by a fellowship in women’s and perinatal pathology, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Dr. Carlson also holds a PhD in biophysics and computational biology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His passion for medicine stems from his interest in transforming scientific research discoveries into real-world therapies and technologies that improve patient outcomes. 

Before joining City of Hope, Dr. Carlson was associate director of surgical pathology at Los Angeles General Hospital and professor of clinical pathology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC in the same city. He also spent 13 years at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, where he held several academic and research appointments. 

A respected physician-scientist, Dr. Carlson has been an author on more than 80 peer-reviewed publications and several books, including the Atlases of Tumor and Non-Tumor Pathology, Series 5: Tumors of the Ovary and Fallopian Tube, for which he was the lead author. He has received multiple teaching awards and contributed to numerous grant-funded projects aimed at developing innovative diagnostic tools to improve cancer care.