Zoon Wangu, MD, FAAP - Quinsigamond House Mentor

Dr. Zoon Wangu grew up in Pittsburgh, PA and Franklin, MA. She received her BS in Biology and Art History from Tufts University, MD from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and completed pediatric residency at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. She was a primary care pediatrician in Cohasset, MA before starting her fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the Boston University Medical Center. Dr. Wangu completed a second fellowship in Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

 Dr. Wangu is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at UMass Chan Medical School and attending physician in Pediatric Infectious Diseases & Immunology at UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center. She also serves as clinical faculty at the Ratelle STD/HIV Prevention Training Center at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Her clinical interests include HIV post-exposure and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PEP/PrEP), adolescent health, and travel medicine. During fellowship, Dr. Wangu focused her research on low-grade HPV-infected anogenital tissue and its potential role in HIV acquisition and transmission, for which she received the Massachusetts Infectious Diseases Society’s Maxwell Finland Award for Excellence in Research. Her current research interests include development of innovative STI/HIV training modules for clinicians; pharmacy collaboration to optimize expedited partner therapy (EPT) implementation; and long-term outcomes of congenital syphilis infection and exposure. She served on the Correctional Medicine Committee for the 2021 CDC STI Treatment Guidelines and is on the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Infectious Diseases Society. Dr. Wangu has received teaching awards from the UMass Pediatric Residency Program, became a Learning Communities mentor in 2018, and is passionate about teaching students, residents, and anyone who will listen to her wax poetic about STIs.

 When not immersed in the world of infectious diseases, Dr. Wangu enjoys cooking, drawing, playing piano and running around with her husband and two children in Framingham.

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." – Anne Frank