The Department of Pediatrics is pleased to announce the appointment of Juhi Kumar, MD, MPH, as Interim Division Chief of Pediatrics Nephrology, effective January 1, 2022. Dr. Kumar is taking on this role following the retirement of Dr. Eduardo Perelstein, who was a dedicated leader of the pediatric nephrology division for seven years.
Dr. Juhi Kumar is an Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Associate Professor in Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine and an Associate Attending Pediatrician at the NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Kumar received her medical degree (MBBS) from LLRM Medical College in India. She completed a residency in Pediatrics at SUNY-Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, and a fellowship in Pediatric Nephrology at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She also completed a Master’s in Public Health (MPH) at the School of Public Health, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
She is an expert in conditions affecting the kidneys in children, from congenital structural kidney abnormalities, kidney diseases causing proteinuria and hematuria, high blood pressure and fluid and electrolyte disorders. She cares for patients across the spectrum of kidney disease from acute kidney injury to chronic kidney disease that ultimately require renal replacement therapy, including dialysis and transplant.
Dr. Kumar serves as the Medical Director of the Pediatric Kidney Transplant Program at Weill Cornell Medicine/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (NYP). She leads the efforts of the nephrology and transplant surgery teams to provide comprehensive and empathetic care to pediatric kidney transplant recipients. She is also part of the Department of Pediatrics commitment to patient safety and leads the implementation of the “Prevention of Nephrotoxic medication induced Acute kidney injury” initiative at NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital as part of the Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions for Patient Safety Network.
In addition to her strong clinical expertise, Dr. Kumar also participates in various research initiatives aimed at improving outcomes for children with kidney disease. Dr. Kumar is the Co-Principal Investigator and along with her colleagues at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia leads VIRTUUS (Validating Injury in the Renal Transplant Using Urinary Signatures), one of the largest multicenter cohort studies in pediatric kidney transplant recipients in North America, funded by a R01 grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The VIRTUUS study aims to validate in children the urinary biomarkers found to predict allograft injury in adult kidney transplant recipients. This study’s results will advance the ability to identify and characterize early allograft injury in pediatric kidney allograft recipients through non-invasive immune surveillance. Previously, Dr. Kumar was the recipient of a career development research award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) to study vitamin D deficiency in chronic kidney disease. She continues to investigate the associations between vitamin D and blood pressure and characterize the prevalence and determinants of free 25 hydroxyvitamin D in children with chronic kidney disease.
In this new role, Dr. Kumar looks forward to growing the clinical, research and educational footprint of the pediatric nephrology division. She will lead the division to provide excellent, timely and compassionate patient care, support and encourage the research and academic initiatives of her division members and enhance the educational opportunities for the trainees at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital as well as other NYP network hospitals.