Katherine Williams, MD, MPH

Biography

Dr. Williams is a Research Instructor in the Department of Family Medicine. She serves as Research Project Coordinator as part of the PittVax Immunization Research Team.  Dr. Williams was awarded a B.S. in Integrated Life Sciences from Kent State University in 1991 and an M.D. from Northeast Ohio Medical University in 1991.  Dr. Williams completed a residency in Internal Medicine in 1994, a fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism in 1996, an M.P.H. in Chronic Disease Epidemiology in 1997 and a clinical research fellowship in Diabetes and Metabolism in 1999, all at the University of Pittsburgh. 

Dr. Williams began working at the University of Pittsburgh as clinical faculty in 1999 with a focus on diabetes, insulin resistance, and public health.   Her clinical research experience includes behavioral weight control, screening and prevention of disease, type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, skeletal muscle metabolism, the impact of the immune response on disease prevention and progression, and influenza immunizations.  She provided medical oversight for workshops on nutrition counseling and very low-calorie diets (VLCD) for adults with type 2 diabetes.  

During her Endocrinology and Metabolism Fellowship, she completed her Master of Public Health degree with a thesis project on the effects of intermittent VLCDs on glycemic control in type 2 diabetes.  Following her Endocrinology and Metabolism fellowship, she obtained a K23 Mentored Career Development award through the National Institutes of Health to use positron emission tomography (PET) imaging with mathematical modeling, to study the effects of weight loss with VLCDs on insulin resistance and skeletal muscle metabolism.  These studies expanded on her prior experiences and combined the theoretical aspects of mathematical modeling, the physics of radioactive tracers, intensive clinical metabolic assessments, with a clinical intervention of weight loss.  Through this multi-disciplinary experience, she had opportunities to work with and learn from internationally recognized experts in mathematical modeling of metabolism, PET physicists, engineers, and clinical staff.

She has been involved in several NIH-sponsored studies.  She worked as a clinical administrator for the Obesity and Nutrition Research Center (ONRC), providing oversight and assistance to researchers who utilized the center for DEXA scanning, phlebotomy, pilot grant submissions and assisting with center renewals.  Through this work, she assisted and advised on the initial recruitment of participants for the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), a multi-centered NIH sponsored trial that ultimately showed type 2 diabetes could be prevented with lifestyle changes or medication.  She worked on both clinical and scientific aspects of the Epidemiology of Diabetes Complications (EDC) study, a long-term (30 year) follow-up study of patients with type 1 who were diagnosed at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh from the 1950s-1980s.  She also provided clinical support to the Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) study, a multi-center, longitudinal, observational study using the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) cohort of 1,297 patients.

Since 2019, she has served as project coordinator and epidemiologist on PittVax’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-sponsored immune response studies for influenza vaccination in children and the elderly, overseeing the recruitment and enrollment of over 500 participants over two years and providing statistical analysis and data management support.  She also provided assistance for both research and departmental clinical safety endeavors during the COVID-19 pandemic.  She has authored or co-authored 18 or more peer-reviewed publications.