Dr. Beller is the Ruth C. Heede Professor of Cardiology and former Chief of the Cardiovascular Division at the University of Virginia Health System. He was born in New York City and received his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College (1962) and his M.D. from the University of Virginia (1966), after which he under-took internal medicine residency training at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and the Boston City Hospital. He spent one year as a cardiology fellow in the Thorndike Memorial Laboratory (Harvard Medical Unit) at Boston City Hospital and, after three years in the Army, underwent further clinical and research train-ing in cardiology at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital. After spending three years on the staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital, he returned to UVa in 1977 to take the position of chief of the Cardiovascular Division. He served in that position for 27 years. He was the president of the Clinical Staff at UVa from 1998 to 2004. Dr. Beller’s research has predominantly been in the field of nuclear cardiology, with emphasis on developing non-invasive techniques for detection of coronary artery disease, assessing prognosis and myocardial viability. He has more than 400 publications, is the author of Clinical Nuclear Cardiology (published by W.B. Saunders), and co-edited Nuclear Cardiology: State of the Art and Future Directions, the third edition of which was published in 2005. He currently is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Nuclear Cardiology.

He has played a leadership role on the national level in various cardiovascular societies and organizations. He was chairman of the Council on Clinical Cardiology of the American Heart Association (AHA), chair of the AHA Scientific Advisory Committee, president of the AHA Virginia Affiliate, and president of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Division of the Virginia AHA. He served 12 years on the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Board of Trustees, was chairman of the ACC Board of Governors, and then president of the College (2000-2001). In 1995, he was president of the Association of Professors of Cardiology and, in 1999, served as president of the Association of University Cardiologists. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award and the James B. Herrick Award from the American Heart Association, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Paul Dudley White Society of the Massachusetts General Hospital.