We are very pleased to announce that Dr. Ami Shah has officially been named director of the Division of Rheumatology. Dr. Shah has served as associate director of the division since April 2021, during which time she has expertly led academic operations and contributed to the strategic growth of the division.
Dr. Shah is co-director of the Johns Hopkins Scleroderma Center and deputy director of the Rheumatology Precision Medicine Centers of Excellence Clinical Programs. She earned her medical degree from Johns Hopkins University before pursuing an internal medicine residency at Stanford University. She then returned to Hopkins to complete a fellowship in rheumatology in 2009. During her fellowship training, she earned her Master of Health Science in Clinical Investigation at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Shah is recognized nationally and internationally as an expert in the clinical care of patients with systemic sclerosis, Raynaud’s phenomenon and fibrosing syndromes. In fact, more than half of her patients travel to see her from outside of the state of Maryland, spanning over 30 states and 10 countries. Her expertise makes her a sought-after mentor for trainees on the rheumatology consult services at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.
In the academic rheumatology arena, Dr. Shah has performed paradigm-shifting work on mechanisms of cancer-induced autoimmunity in rheumatic diseases. Her work is already transforming our understanding of systemic sclerosis and has direct implications for the emerging field of immune related adverse events related to cancer immunotherapy. She is building a tremendous program fostering personalized medicine approaches in the field of rheumatic disease. In recognition of her work, she was the named the 2020 recipient of the Henry Kunkel Early Career Investigator Award from the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), which honors early career physician scientists who have made outstanding and promising independent contributions to research in the field of rheumatology.
Over the past few years, Dr. Shah has been increasingly involved in the leadership of the Division of Rheumatology alongside Dr. Antony Rosen, former director of the division. We are grateful for his loyalty to the division and for lending his expertise to Dr. Shah during this transition. Dr. Shah is an outstanding collaborator, a fruitful investigator and a generous mentor, and we are confident her leadership will continue to bring eminence to the Division of Rheumatology.
