Childhood Obesity Expert Is Named Chief of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital
Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital has appointed Joan Han, MD, a world expert in childhood obesity, as Chief of the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes in the Jack and Lucy Clark Department of Pediatrics. She will also be a Professor of Pediatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Prior to joining Mount Sinai, Dr. Han served as Director of the Pediatric Obesity Program at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. She is board certified in general pediatrics, pediatric endocrinology, and obesity medicine and has published broadly in these fields.
“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Han to Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital, where her expertise in pediatric endocrinology, most notably obesity medicine, will be of great value to the pediatric community we serve,” says Lisa Satlin, MD, Chair, Jack and Lucy Clark Department of Pediatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
“I am delighted and honored to be joining the faculty of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. While Memphis, Tennessee, and New York City may seem like very different regions, each with its own special charms, both cities are similarly grappling with the epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes. To address this, I have been in planning meetings across multiple divisions at Mount Sinai to create a comprehensive program targeting these health concerns from both directions—prevention as well as treatment,” says Dr. Han.
Dr. Han’s areas of clinical focus are type 2 diabetes and other disorders associated with obesity, and endocrine and metabolic complications associated with brain tumors and brain trauma. Her primary research efforts focus on the neuroendocrine regulation of energy balance and cognitive functioning as well as the genetic, environmental, and behavioral determinants of metabolic health in the general population and in patients with rare genetic disorders associated with
obesity and type 2 diabetes, such as leptin/MC4R pathway defects and Alström, Bardet-Biedl, Prader-Willi, and WAGR/11p deletion syndromes.
Dr. Han earned her medical degree from Harvard University. She completed her residency in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center, and pursued further advanced training in a clinical research fellowship at Nemours Children’s Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, and a pediatric endocrinology fellowship at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
She is a Pediatric Associate Editor for the International Journal of Obesity. She is a member of the Society for Pediatric Research, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, and the Obesity Society, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the nation’s leading integrated academic health systems and one of the largest in the New York metropolitan area. The Health System includes approximately 48,000 employees, more than 9,000 physicians, and 8,600 nurses across seven hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, over 600 research and clinical laboratories, a school of nursing, and schools of medicine and graduate school of biomedical sciences.
As a leading learning health system, Mount Sinai combines clinical expertise with scientific discovery to improve patient care while training the next generation of health care and biomedical leaders. The Health System provides care across every stage of life, from prenatal care through geriatrics, while advancing personalized medicine through artificial intelligence, data science, and biomedical research.
Mount Sinai is consistently recognized among the nation’s leading academic health systems for patient care, research, and education. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 1 in New York and recognized as one of the world’s top Smart Hospital by Newsweek. The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai ranks No. 11 among U.S. medical schools for National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding and No. 1 among freestanding medical schools, reflecting the strength of its scientific enterprise and leadership in biomedical research.
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