Dr. Ahima is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He received a BSc from the University of London, MD from the University of Ghana, and PhD from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. He did an internship and residency in internal medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Jack D. Weiler Hospital and Jacobi Medical Center, in New York. He then moved to the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, for subspecialty training in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, and postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Jeffrey Flier.

Dr. Ahima served as Instructor in Medicine at Harvard prior to moving to Penn in 1999. He received an Owl Club Teaching Award at Tulane University School of Medicine, Leo Davidoff Award at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Pfizer Postdoctoral Award at Harvard Medical School, and the Albert Stunkard Founder’s Award at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Ahima was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2005, and the Association of American Physicians in 2010. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, and Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and The Obesity Society. Dr. Ahima has served as a reviewer for the National Institutes of Health, Wellcome Foundation of the United Kingdom, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and is a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors of

the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Dr. Ahima is a past Associate Editor of Gastroenterology, and the Journal of Clinical Investigation, and currently a Co-Editor of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Year in Diabetes and Obesity.Dr. Ahima’s research is focused on the central and peripheral regulation of energy homeostasis, and glucose and lipid metabolism. He is interested in how adipocyte hormones, such as leptin, adiponectin and resistin, act in the brain and other organs. These studies which have important implications for the pathophysiology of obesity and diabetes, involve the use of transgenic mice, chemical and immunoassays, in vivo metabolic measurements, neurochemistry, and tissue culture techniques. Dr. Ahima has a clinical interest in obesity, diabetes and related metabolic diseases. He is an attending endocrinologist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, director of Obesity Unit of the Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, and director of the Penn Diabetes Research Center Mouse Phenotyping Core.