Leo Lopez

Leo Lopez is the Medical Director of Echocardiography at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine. He was born in the Philippines and lived in Makati until he moved to the US at the age of ten. His father’s family was originally from Balayan in the province of Batangas, and his great grandfather Mariano Lopez and great uncle Sixto Lopez were both very involved during the rebellion for independence and close colleagues of José Rizal.

He settled with his mother, father, and younger sister in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, shortly after emigrating to the US. Because no other family members lived nearby, the Filipino community of Pittsburgh became their extended family. This community was very active at the annual Pittsburgh Folk Festival, particularly in terms of performing traditional Filipino folk dances. An active member of the Filipino folk-dance troupe during high school, Leo choreographed a disco version of the tinikling during his senior year, and the performance was highlighted in an article in a national Filipino American newspaper. In fact, he was invited shortly afterwards to join a dance troupe in Washington, DC, that was performing at the Kennedy Center for the Philippine Consulate because they had heard of the “disco tinikling” from Pittsburgh.

After high school, Leo studied at Johns Hopkins University with a major in Biophysics and a minor in Russian, and he received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. This was followed by seven years at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School where he completed his pediatric residency and pediatric cardiology specialty training. His first job as a pediatric cardiologist was in New York City, and he served for many years as the Director of Echocardiography at several hospitals in New York City and Miami. During this time, her served in various leadership roles for national organizations like the American Society of Echocardiography and the American College of Cardiology. Although he was no longer performing as a Filipino folk dancer, he continued to dance with several jazz dance troupes, sing with local choruses, and perform in numerous musicals in several community theaters in New York City and Miami.

After having lived most of his life in the East Coast, Leo was finally lured in 2018 to the natural beauty of California and the academic and cultural excitement of Stanford, joining the Division of Pediatric Cardiology at LPCH as the Medical Director of Echocardiography. Having recently lived in Miami where the Filipino community is quite small with only one Filipino restaurant in the area, the sudden exposure to Filipino culture and Filipino food in the Bay Area was a welcomed and refreshing change. In fact, this reconnection with his Filipino heritage was the primary reason that he and his sister recently visited the Philippines, meeting most of his relatives for the first time since he was ten years old.  The trip over the Christmas holiday in 2022 was exhilarating, exhausting, and wonderful, and it included a poignant visit to the Lopez family heritage home in Balayan, which now serves as a small museum highlighting some of the events surrounding the rebellion for independence from Spain and from the US, particularly in terms of the role of members of the Lopez family.

When Leo is not working hard at the Children’s Hospital, he continues to work with community theaters in the Bay Area, having recently performed with the Sunnyvale Community Players, Foothill College Musical Theater, and Redwood City Community Theater. He has developed a significant interest in hip hop dance since moving here and has recently performed with his hip hop dance crew NTL (Never Too Late), with at least five members of the crew who are in their sixties. He loves to hike and bike, and what better place is there to do these activities than Northern California?