Biography

I am an early-career Pediatric endocrinologist at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Connecticut. My research is currently focused on pediatric obesity. I am interested in defining mechanisms involved in excess caloric intake since research reports that the genetic and epigenetic framework and stages in the host biology impacts disease process in obesity. Given my strong interest in learning and understanding early disease process and my desire to gain experience in the field I joined The Finck laboratory at the University of Connecticut / Connecticut Children’s Medical Center two years ago. One of the goals in our lab is to explore adipose tissue physiology and loss of homeostasis in adipose tissue samples collected at the metabolic and bariatric surgery program. My primary focus has been understanding the relationship of obesity in the adolescent population and the degree of inflammation and immune dysregulation from plasma samples and clinical correlation with weight loss, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.As a clinician, I strive to explore new approaches that might prevent or treat pediatric obesity. Now with the increase prevalence of overweight and obesity in children even younger than five, I believe is important to identify that is not just one treatment fits all solution, efforts need to be directed in defining targeted individualized strategies. I have also been involved in developing skills in bringing disproportionate affected minorities into basic scienceresearch to bring diversity into our project since most of the scientific studies lack diversity.