Carolina Montaño

About Carolina Montaño

Carolina Montaño is a T-32 fellowship funded pediatric clinical and laboratory geneticist and Attending at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. She completed her pediatric residency at Boston Children's Hospital before enrolling in the Clinical Genetics and Genomics residency at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). She then completed a Laboratory Genetics and Genomics (LGG) Fellowship at NHGRI/NIH, where she served as Chief Fellow. Dr. Montaño graduated from the MD/PhD program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2017, with her PhD in Human Genetics.

Carolina was born in Barranquilla, Colombia. Her father, a civic leader in the Magdalena region, was targeted by terrorists and the family fled to Florida on an asylum status. She is a naturalized citizen. 

Though having completed three years of medical education in Colombia, Carolina was required by the American system to complete a bachelor's degree, which she did in neuroscience and molecular biology at Brigham Young University. There she attained a perfect 4.0 average, graduated summa cum laude and served as Commencement speaker. 

With an NIH scholarship, Carolina spent two years at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases prior to enrolling to medical school. After completing medical training and pediatrics residency, she returned to NIH, this time at the National Human Genome Research Institute, to train in the emerging field of medical genomics. Her long-term goal is to understand the role of DNA methylation and chromatin alterations in disease and to bring those insights back to the clinical care of patients with rare diseases.

As Carolina realizes her dream of becoming a rare disease clinician-researcher, she is equally committed to serving as a role model for Latine youth, inspiring the next generation of scientists and physicians.