Scaling Understanding, Advancing Care, and Developing Treatments for Rare Genetic Conditions

Wendy Chung, MD, PhD, is the Incoming Chief of the Department of Pediatrics of Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Chung will be responsible for leadership, strategy, oversight, and vision for the Department of Pediatrics, ensuring alignment with the goals, strategic priorities, and mission of Boston Children’s, the Physician’s Organization, and Harvard Medical School.

In addition to her role as Chief of the Department of Pediatrics, Dr. Chung will serve as the Mary Ellen Avery Professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS), and President of the Children’s Hospital Pediatric Associates.

Dr. Chung joins Boston Children’s from Columbia University Irving Medical Center/NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, where she servs as Chief of the Division of Clinical Genetics within the Department of Pediatrics, the Associate Director for Education at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Medical Director for the Columbia Genetic Counseling Graduate Program, and the Precision Medicine Resource Leader at the Irving Institute. Dr. Chung is also a Kennedy Family Professor of Pediatrics in Medicine who leads the Chung Laboratory at Columbia University Medical Center.

With more than 20 years of experience as a clinical and molecular geneticist, Dr. Chung has directed many National Institutes of Health-funded research programs. She is the tenured Kennedy Family Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine and currently serves as the Director of Clinical Research at the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI), where she leads two large autism and neurodevelopmental disorder cohorts, SPARK and Searchlight. She is also the Director of the Pediatric Neuromuscular Network Molecular Core and the New York Obesity Center Molecular Genetics Core.

Dr. Chung received her BA in biochemistry and economics from Cornell University, her MD from Cornell University Medical College, and her PhD in genetics from Rockefeller University.