Karen H. Costenbader MD, MPH

Karen Costenbader, MD, MPH, is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and holds the Michael E. Weinblatt, MD Distinguished Chair in Rheumatology in the Division of Rheumatology, Inflammation and Immunity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, where she serves as Director of the Lupus Program.

She is a graduate of Williams College, University of Cambridge, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard School of Public Health, and trained in medicine and rheumatology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Costenbader’s research investigates the epidemiology and pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis in particular.

She is an experienced research mentor for medical students, residents, graduate students in epidemiology, and rheumatology fellows and junior faculty, having trained over 30 doctoral and post-doctoral fellows and faculty. She is PI of the BWH Lupus Registry containing data on more than 2400 patients. She is a co-editor of Arthritis and Rheumatology, the chair of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Council for the Lupus Foundation of America, and currently chair of the National Institutes of Health AMS study section grant review committee.