Paul Yock Biography

Paul Yock is the Martha Meier Weiland Professor of Medicine and founding co-chair of Stanford’s Department of Bioengineering, with courtesy appointments in the Graduate School of Business and the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is also founder and director of the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign.

Yock began his faculty career as an interventional cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, before moving to Stanford in 1994.

Yock is internationally known for his work in inventing, developing, and testing new devices, including the Rapid Exchange™ stenting and balloon angioplasty system, which is now the primary system in use worldwide. He also invented the fundamental approach to intravascular ultrasound imaging and founded Cardiovascular Imaging Systems (CVIS), later acquired by Boston Scientific.

Recent honors include the Transcatheter Therapeutics (TCT) Career Achievement Award, the American College of Cardiology Distinguished Scientist Award, and the National Academy of Engineering’s 2018 Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education.

He has more than fifty U.S. patents, and has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications, chapters, and editorials; and two textbooks.

After completing his undergraduate studies in chemistry and philosophy at Amherst College, and graduate studies in philosophy and physiology at Oxford, Yock received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He completed his internship and residency training at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center; and a fellowship in cardiology at the Stanford University Medical Center.