Mentor - Jennifer Woo Baidal, MD, MPH

Jennifer Woo Baidal is Florence Irving Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and inaugural Director of the Pediatric Obesity Initiative in the Department of Pediatrics at Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. As Director of Pediatric Weight Management in the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, she leads a multidisciplinary clinical program that includes behavior change and nutrition support in the Columbia/NYP Center for Adolescent Bariatric Surgery.

Dr. Woo Baidal’s health services research program aims to improve child health equity, with a focus on reducing racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in obesity. Her research program translates clinical, community, and epidemiologic findings into population-level interventions during pregnancy, infancy, and early childhood to prevent childhood obesity and related chronic diseases. As the Principal Investigator on projects funded through National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Dr. Woo Baidal is leading action-oriented research focused on social needs, food and health systems, and interventions to reduce obesity and its adverse health consequences among vulnerable populations.

Dr. Woo Baidal is a graduate of University of California Los Angeles and Harvard Medical School. She completed pediatric internship and residency at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and fellowship in pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition at Boston Children’s Hospital. She is a graduate of the Harvard-wide Pediatric Health Services Research fellowship and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.]