Mahboobeh Mahdavinia, MD, PhD

Biography

Dr. Mahboobeh (Maha) Mahdavinia is a physician-scientist at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She is a board-certified allergist/immunologist with a background in immunology of allergic diseases and a PhD in molecular epidemiology.

Beside serving as the chief of the Allergy/Immunology division, she serves at several other leadership roles at the national, regional and institutional levels. She is a representative at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), an ambassador of the American Board of Allergy and Immunology; and a member of three steering committees of the American Academy of Asthma, Allergy and Immunology.

Dr. Mahdavinia runs an active academic clinical practice in both adult and pediatric allergy, while leading a clinical/translational research team on food allergy and chronic rhinosinusitis. Dr. Mahdavinia is involved in several national and international collaborative research studies. These include the Food Allergy Outcomes Related to White and African American Racial Differences (FORWARD), the South African Food Allergy (SAFFA) cohort, and the Prospective Epidemiological Research Studies (PERSIAN) birth cohort.

The theme of her research is the interactive role of diet, environment, and microbiome in allergic conditions, which has resulted in more than 100 papers.

Her studies have been funded by the NIH, the Brinson Foundation, the Institute for Translational Medicine, and other Foundations. She is the recipient of several awards for her excellence in clinic, research and education, and has mentored multiple successful individuals at different levels of their training during her career. She has served on the editorial board of two Allergy/Immunology (AI) journals and reviews for major journals in the field of AI and Medicine. She has been invited to serve at the study sections by federal and non-federal funding agencies (i.e., DoD, Foundations, Societies). She is also an active non-academic writer and have published OpEds in periodicals such as the Chicago Tribune, the Washington post and the Sun Times.