Jason Zhang, MD PhD
The EASE Research Lab was co-founded by Jason Zhang, MD PhD.
Jason received his undergraduate degree in Biology from Yale University. He obtained his MD from Harvard Medical School and a PhD from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Zhang completed his pediatric residency training at the Boston Combined Residency Program, and his fellowship in Gastroenterology at Boston Children’s Hospital. He is now on faculty at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School as an Attending Physician in the Gastroenterology Division and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, respectively. Jason is the founder and medical director of Nurturing Wellness, a health behavior and lifestyle intervention program for children and adolescents with obesity and obesity-related diseases from underserved communities.
His research seeks to understand how the gut microbiome protects against disordered eating behaviors and metabolic disease. Despite the well-established association between poverty and poor metabolic health, the biological mechanisms through which environmental exposures such as chronic stress, resource deprivation, and social isolation contribute to disordered eating behaviors and metabolic disease remain poorly understood. His research investigates how these exposures shape the gut microbiome and influence disease risk. His work in the EASE Laboratory aims to define the mechanistic links among environmental exposures, the gut microbiome, eating behaviors, and metabolic disease to identify novel therapeutic strategies that disrupt these pathways and reduce the long-term health consequences of early-life adversity.