Michelle Tarver is the Director of the Patient Science and Engagement Program at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH).  The Patient Science and Engagement Program fosters innovative approaches to collecting, analyzing and integrating the patient perspective in the development, evaluation and surveillance of medical devices, including digital health technologies.  Under her leadership, CDRH is making the integration of the patients’ perspectives throughout the total product lifecycle of medical devices part of its daily business.  She also leads the CDRH Patient Engagement Advisory Committee efforts, an advisory panel comprised entirely of patients and caregivers providing their perspectives on general issues related to the regulation of medical devices.  In addition to her experience in patient-focused efforts, Dr. Tarver has extensive experience in premarket and postmarket review of various medical devices, developing guidance documents and standards, and fostering external collaborations.  

Dr. Tarver attended Spelman College in Atlanta, GA where she received a B.S. in Biochemistry.  She completed the M.D./Ph.D. program at The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health (Ph.D. in clinical epidemiology) and The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  Following her internal medicine internship, she completed a residency in ophthalmology with fellowship training in ocular inflammation (uveitis) both at the Wilmer Eye Institute (Johns Hopkins). As an epidemiologist and board-certified ophthalmologist, she has worked on longitudinal epidemiological studies, clinical trials, registries, developing patient-reported outcome measures as well as surveys to capture patient preferences with medical devices.  Her research has resulted in numerous peer-reviewed publications and published book chapters.  As a dedicated clinician, she continues to evaluate and treat ophthalmology patients at Solomon Eye Associates in Bowie, MD.