About Us

Photo of Joan McGowan

Joan A McGowan, Ph.D.
Division of Musculoskeletal Diseases
Director


Phone: 301-594-5055
Fax: 301-480-1284
Building: Democracy I, Room: 864
E-mail: mcgowanj@mail.nih.gov 

Joan A. McGowan, Ph.D., is Director of the Musculoskeletal Diseases Branch as well as Program Director of the Bone Diseases Program. She received her Masters in Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Science at Brown University. Areas in her portfolio include clinical research on osteoporosis and related bone diseases. Before joining NIH, Dr. McGowan was a faculty member at the Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. McGowan has been very active in osteoporosis and women's health activities at NIH, including serving as a Project Officer in the Women's Health Initiative since its inception and planning in 1991. She co-chairs the Federal Working Group on Bone Diseases whose members represent all of the U.S. federal agencies with activities in osteoporosis and related bone disease. This group serves to develop and foster collaborative activities among the government agencies in bone diseases. She was the NIH organizer of a Consensus Development Conference on Optimum Calcium Intake in 1994 and one on Osteoporosis held in March, 2000. She has served as a member of the Advisory Board of the Canadian Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis. She served as the Senior Scientific Editor of the Surgeon General’s Report on Osteoporosis and Bone Health published in 2004.