Zahra Jalali, MD

Zahra Jalali, MD, is a board-certified anatomic and clinical pathologist and Surgical Pathology Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Dr. Jalali spent her childhood in Japan before pursuing her medical education at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in Iran, where she graduated in the top 1% of her class. She subsequently moved to the United States and completed postdoctoral research training in the Adamopoulos Laboratory at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. Her research focused on the immunologic mechanisms underlying inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, particularly the roles of γδ T cells and cytokine-mediated inflammation.

She completed her residency in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, where she also served as Chief Resident. She joined Johns Hopkins in July 2026 for a Surgical Pathology Fellowship (2026–2027), followed by a Gastrointestinal Pathology Fellowship (2027–2028).

Dr. Jalali's clinical and research interests include gastrointestinal and pancreaticobiliary pathology, oncologic pathology, women's health, predictive and prognostic biomarkers, and tumor immunology. Her scholarly work spans immunology, cancer research, and gastrointestinal diseases, with publications in Arthritis & Rheumatology, Clinical Immunology, Journal of Advanced Nursing, and Endocrine Pathology, among others.

She has also led quality improvement initiatives focused on improving thyroid fine-needle aspiration adequacy and optimizing immunohistochemical stain utilization, with findings presented at the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP) annual meetings.