University of Colorado Department of Pediatrics

Diane M. Straub, MD, MPH, has been named as the next Head of the Section of Adolescent Medicine. Dr. Straub will join the faculty of the University of Colorado School of Medicine as Visiting Professor of Pediatrics and begin her tenure as Section Head on June 1, 2021. Dr. Straub emerged as our top candidate following a comprehensive national search to replace Dr. David Kaplan, who served as Section Head for 37 years.

Dr. Straub joins us from the University of South Florida where she has been Professor of Pediatrics and Chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine since 2006. While at USF since 2002, Diane has served as Associate Program Director for the USF Pediatric Residency Program, a Career Advisor to the USF College of Medicine, and as Medical Director of the Ybor Youth Clinic. Dr. Straub is an accomplished community-based researcher, having served as Co-Principal Investigator on USF’s Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions program, an NIH funded collaborative research network which develops and conducts a broad range of research trials in HIV-at-risk and HIV-infected youth and young adults.  She is also the site Principal Investigator for a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) funded project that aims to address consent issues in research on adolescent HIV/AIDS, and the Principal Investigator on a Merck funded grant addressing pediatric resident training on Long-Acting Reversible Contraception.

Dr. Straub received her medical degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1995 and her Master’s in Public Health degree from Harvard University in 1996. She completed a residency in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University in 1999 and a fellowship in adolescent medicine at the University of California, San Francisco in 2002. She is a world-class swimmer having earned gold medals at the 1992 and 1996 Paralympics Games.