Rexford Ahima, MD, PhD

Dr. Ahima is the Director of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Diabetes in the Schools of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing, and the leader of the Johns Hopkins Diabetes Initiative.

Dr. Ahima received intercalated BSc research training in endocrinology in the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, University of London, MD from the University of Ghana, and PhD from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. After completing his internship and residency training in Internal Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Jack D. Weiler Hospital and Jacobi Medical Center in New York, Dr. Ahima did his clinical and research fellowship training in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Dr. Ahima is an elected member of National Academy of Medicine, fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American College of Physicians, and Obesity Society, and member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, Association of American Physicians, and Interurban Clinical Club. He is a former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, former associate editor of Endocrine Reviews, Endocrinology, Molecular Endocrinology, and Gastroenterology, and current editor of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Year in Diabetes and Obesity. 

Dr. Ahima’s research focuses on the pathogenesis of obesity and diabetes, particularly how adipokines, cytokines, myokines and other circulating factors target the brain and peripheral organs to regulate feeding and glucose and lipid metabolism.