Meet Dr. Jonathan Steinman: Caring for Kids, Searching for Answers

After years of education and training, Jonathan Steinman, MD, PhD, jokes that he has finally graduated from "31st grade."

It's an easy laugh after a long journey that took him from the San Francisco Bay Area to Harvard University, Cornell University Medical College, and ultimately Columbia University Irving Medical Center, where he completed his pediatric residency and fellowship before joining the faculty at the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center.

"It was a long road," Steinman said. "I just finished my first full year out of training, which is so nice. I completed 31st grade."

For Steinman, however, the years of training were always about more than earning degrees. They were about finding the place where his love of science and his desire to help people could come together.

"I thought I would be a scientist and just do science," he said. "But then I realized that it's extremely gratifying to be able to actually help people on a day-to-day basis."

That realization began during medical school, where Steinman was pursuing both his medical degree and a PhD in chemistry. He initially imagined developing new medications in the laboratory, but everything changed once he began caring for patients.

"When you actually see patients and experience patient interaction, that changed the ballgame for me."

Inspired by Children's Resilience

Working with children quickly became the obvious choice.

Steinman was struck by the resilience of young patients facing serious illnesses.

"Children don't know they should feel down about having a new diagnosis or about being sick," he said. "When they recover, they can recover in amazing and remarkable ways. They just appreciate being healthy and getting back to being children."

That perspective ultimately led him to pediatric endocrinology, a specialty focused on conditions that affect hormones, growth, metabolism, and diabetes.

"I really became interested in lifelong health and preventing disease," Steinman said. "We tell our kids with Type 1 diabetes, and with many other chronic conditions, 'Yes, this is going to change your life. Yes, you're going to have to do some new things. But it shouldn't impact your dreams. It shouldn't impact what you aspire to do.'"

Helping children manage chronic conditions while still pursuing the lives they want, he says, is one of the most rewarding parts of his work.

Asking Why Children Are Different

Steinman's career at Columbia has allowed him to pair patient care with scientific research.

During residency, he became fascinated by an important question: Why do children who develop obesity-related conditions often experience diseases that behave differently than they do in adults?

"In pediatrics, we say kids are not just little adults," he said. "They're really different."

His research focuses on understanding why conditions such as Type 2 diabetes and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) can be more aggressive in children than in adults.

Working with patient tissue samples and advanced genetic sequencing technologies, Steinman and his colleagues are searching for biological differences that could eventually lead to more personalized treatments.

"Our goal is to make it easier to give patients targeted treatments," he said.

Learning From Mentors—and Patients

Steinman credits one of his mentors, Utpal Pajvani, MD, with helping shape both his scientific career and his approach to academic medicine.

The connection came through his wife, Susan De Wolf, MD, a medical oncologist and physician-scientist. After learning from Pajvani and working with him in the hospital during her medical school and residency training at Columbia, she encouraged Steinman to reach out as he was exploring research opportunities.

"My wife suggested I reach out to Dr. Pajvani," Steinman said. "She said he was a really great person—someone who thinks carefully about people, their training and how they can grow, not just about advancing the research. He's been a real role model. He has an incredible ability to think years ahead and help provide a roadmap.

Today, Steinman balances several roles. He sees patients in clinic each week, cares for hospitalized children, teaches pediatric residents, and spends much of his time leading research aimed at improving treatments for children with metabolic diseases.

Despite his busy schedule, patient care remains at the center of everything he does.

"I think the coolest thing I get to say—and it's true—is that at the Berrie Center we are all working on a cure," he said.

For many families, the first visit after a diabetes diagnosis can feel overwhelming.

"It can feel like they're receiving a criminal sentence," Steinman said. "I tell them, 'We don't have a cure yet, but we're working really hard on it, and this whole building is dedicated to that.'"

He also reminds families that the relationship goes both ways.

"I often tell them, 'You're going to come back, and you're going to teach me stuff.' They do all the time."

Finding Home in New York

Although Steinman grew up in California, he says New York always felt like the place he wanted to be.

"I wanted to be in New York no matter what," he said. "I really get to do the things I dreamed of doing as a kid."

Now, after 16 years in the city, he proudly considers himself a New Yorker—though his wife, a lifelong New Yorker, is still deciding whether he has earned the title.

Outside of work, Steinman and his wife are raising two young children, ages 5 and 7. Before medicine, he dreamed of becoming a professional basketball player and later worked as a sports reporter covering basketball, football, and tennis while in college.

Today, he has found a different dream.

Whether he's reassuring a family after a new diabetes diagnosis or pursuing answers in the laboratory, Steinman is driven by the same goal: helping children live full, healthy lives while bringing the medical community one step closer to a cure for diabetes.