Meet Lara
Photo Credit: Erik Cronberg
Career History
Dr. Varpio is a professor at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania. She is internationally recognized for her expertise in qualitative research methods and methodologies, and in theories from the social sciences and humanities. Her research has won national and international awards. She has given invited talks at hospitals and medical schools around the world, and she has led invited sessions and given plenaries at some of the largest and most respected academic medicine conferences in the world.
Dr. Varpio completed her PhD in 2007 at the University of Waterloo, Canada in collaboration with the Wilson Centre for Research in Education at the University of Toronto, Canada. Her award winning PhD research investigated the impact of Electronic Health Records on medical trainee socialization.
Dr. Varpio spent the first 6 years of her career with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, Canada and the Academy for Innovation in Medical Education. Then, in 2013, Dr. Varpio moved to Washington DC, USA to work with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, serving there there until 2022.
Dr. Varpio speaks in English, French, and Swedish, and she has lived in Canada, Sweden, the United States of America. In her free time, she enjoys singing, spinning, and spending time with her husband, two sons, and dog.
Awards: 2019 to Present
2023
Doctoral Report Award (to Dr W Bynum)*, Association of Medical Educators of Europe (AMEE)
2022
New Investigator Award (to Dr G Mount)*, Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), Research in Medical Education section
Three papers awarded Best Research Presentation at the Association of Medical Educators of Europe (AMEE [awarded to 11 papers out of 261 entries] (Varpio as senior author on two, collaborator on one)
2021
Best Paper Award, Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), Research in Medical Education section
2020
Host Scientist, Fulbright Scholars Program
Article Impact Award, Perspectives on Medical Education
Best Research Paper, Assessment, Association for Medical Education in Europe annual conference
Mentor Award, Early Career Medical Educators of Canada
2019
Fellow, Karolinska Prize in Medical Education Fellowship Program
Best Paper Award, Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), Research in Medical Education section
*Awarded to Varpio supervised graduate student
Awards secured before 2019 are available upon request
