Dr. Lilit Garibyan is a board-certified, practicing dermatologist and Associate Professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School and Physician-Scientist-Innovator at Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. She has expertise in cutting edge translational research in areas of device development, dermatology, cutaneous neurobiology, pain treatment, adipose tissue, and immunology. She has spent 20+ years at Harvard Medical School, where she has taught and trained students, residents and fellows in dermatology, laser and energy-based devices, and problem-based innovation. Her research focuses on innovative biomedical translational discoveries aimed at identifying unmet medical needs and working with multidisciplinary teams to develop novel treatments for those needs. Dr. Garibyan is an inventor on >20 pending and granted patents which led to her being elected to the National Academy of Inventors in 2024.  She is the inventor of a platform cooling technology with various therapeutic applications, that has led to three, venture-backed, start-up companies. She is the scientific co-founder of two of those companies. Her inventions have secured over $100 million in VC funding, with breakthrough device designation from the FDA in 2024 for a novel pain therapy, with applications also in the treatment of sleep apnea, cardiovascular and metabolic disease.  She has published over 60 original, peer-reviewed publications and has obtained over $6.5 million grant funding from Department of Defense and NIH for her innovative research.

Dr. Garibyan co-founded and directed an initiative (“Magic Wand Initiative and Virtual Magic Wand Program”) which engages and educates clinicians to become leaders in problem-based innovation. She spearheaded the national and international expansion of this program which has trained >120 clinicians world-wide on how to identify and articulate unmet needs from clinical care and form multidisciplinary teams to develop solutions.

Dr. Garibyan received her B.S. summa cum laude from University of California Los Angeles, her M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and her Ph.D. from Harvard University in Experimental Pathology/Immunology.