After 15 years of studying diabetes research, Abdelfattah El Ouaamari, Ph.D., joins New York Medical College (NYMC) as associate professor of cell biology and anatomy and of pharmacology after an extensive nationwide search. His career aspirations in diabetes research brought him from Morocco, to France and now the United States. While diabetes is his niche, he is transitioning to explore obesity research and looking to investigate behavioral sciences in the near future.
Dr. El Ouaamari was a research associate at Joslin Diabetes Center and an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School for almost a decade before becoming an assistant professor of medicine at Rutgers University prior to joining the College in December 2022.
Born and raised in Morocco, Dr. El Ouaamari’s passion for science started to blossom in high school when he studied life sciences. He thought he’d study to be a pharmacist in college, but his plans quickly changed his second year after exploring biochemistry. He decided to leave Morocco to attend Université Nice Sophia Antipolis in France, as a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry was unavailable in his country at that time. He earned a B.A. in biochemistry and an M.S. and Ph.D. in molecular biology. After college, he moved to the U.S. to have access to the best labs to study diabetes and obesity.