Wanda Phipatanakul

Originally from St. Louis, Wanda Phipatanakul, MD, MS, earned her medical degree from Loma Linda University and completed her residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in 1997. After a fellowship in immunology at Johns Hopkins University, she joined the faculty in the Division of Immunology and Allergy at Boston Children’s and Harvard Medical School, where she has remained for over 2 decades.  

Dr. Phipatanakul has built a deep network of community relationships, and she conducts both school- and home-based asthma studies in children focused on reducing disparities. She has had continuous NIH funding for 23 years. She leads the NIAID School Inner-City Asthma Intervention Study, the NHLBI Environment Assessment of Sleep in Youth, the NIAID funded, PARK study evaluating omalizumab (anti-IgE) in preventing the atopic march and asthma, and a NIAID IDEA study evaluating whether patients carrying a IL4RαR576gene variant, will have a greater response to dupilumab.

Dr. Phipatanakul leads her Center as a Pediatric Principal Investigator in multiple NHLBI asthma and prevention networks, including the Severe Asthma Research Program, the Precise Severe Asthma Network, the Atopic Dermatitis Research Network, and the Childhood Asthma in Urban Settings Network. She has authored >350 publications in scientific journals, including JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine. She is passionate about successfully mentoring the next generation of investigators, and has received multiple mentoring awards for her efforts.  She also enjoys serving the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (AAAAI) and the American Board of Allergy and Immunology serving on both organizations’ Board of Directors. 

Dr. Phipatanakul also serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Allergy Clinical Immunology (JACI) and is currently on the Editorial Board for several other journals including JACI in Practice and Chest. She is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the American Association of Physicians, honor societies for outstanding academic achievement. She is passionate about serving as a role model and supportive mentor to others balancing work and family.