Alain Frédéric Carpentier (born 11 August 1933) is a French cardiac surgeon whom the President of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery calls the "father of modern mitral valve repair".
A professor emeritus at Pierre and Marie Curie University, in the 1980s Carpentier published a landmark paper on mitral valve repair entitled The French Correction.
A visiting professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, he currently heads the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at the Hôpital Européen Georges-Pompidou in Paris.
The recipient of numerous awards, including the 1996 Prix mondial Cino Del Duca, in 2005 the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) bestowed its Medallion for Scientific Achievement for only the fifth time in its history.
In announcing Carpentier as the recipient, the AATS also noted that he is "one of the foremost medical philanthropists in the world, having established a premier cardiac center in Vietnam a decade ago where over 1,000 open-heart cases are now performed annually.