Julia Wattacheril, MD, MPH, is the Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Program director at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Her clinical interests span general and transplant hepatology, with emphasis on metabolic liver disease and obesity. In addition, her research interests focus on hepatic steatosis/steatohepatitis and insulin resistance. Dr. Wattacheril graduated magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Then, she obtained her MD with high honors from Baylor College of Medicine and did her internal medicine training at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Dr. Wattacheril pursued her fellowship in gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition as well as her Masters in Public Health at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. During this time, she created a biorepository and co-led translational proteomics and lipidomics projects using mass spectrometry to investigate protein and lipid relationships in human liver funded by T32 and Digestive Diseases Research Center grants. She then moved to New York City to complete her transplant hepatology fellowship at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where she then stayed on as faculty, expanding her translational work using omics approaches in NAFLD applying and implementing precision medicine in a very diverse population.
