Robert C. Basner

Robert Charles Basner, M.D., Emeritus Professor of Medicine of Columbia University, earned his medical degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, an Alpha-Omega-Alpha awardee. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, and his pulmonary/critical care fellowship in the respiratory division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where he was an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Prior to his retirement in 2018, he served as Professor of Medicine at Columbia University at the Irving Medical Center in New York. He was the founder and director of the Columbia University Cardiopulmonary Sleep and Ventilatory Disorders Center, as well as the director of the pulmonary exercise laboratory and the Cecily and Robert Harris Pulmonary Diagnostics Center. He was also pulmonary consultant to the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig MDA/ALS Research Center at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He continues to serve in the Department of Medicine at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center as a Special Lecturer in Medicine.

Dr. Basner is internationally recognized as a clinician, physiologist, and biomedical researcher, educator, editor, and author. An NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Center Academic Career Award laureate, he is best known for work elucidating the physiology of upper airway muscle control during breathing, the cardiovascular consequences of sleep deprivation, the pathophysiology of cardiovascular perturbations of obstructive sleep apnea, the associations between adverse pregnancy outcomes and sleep-disordered breathing, and optimal ventilatory regimens in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and heart failure.

Dr. Basner also holds a Bachelor of Music degree in music from the City College of New York, where he studied composition and conducting. His first collection of poetry, For Medicine, Memoriam, was published by Spuyten-Duyvil Press in April 2025.

Updated May 7, 2025