Natalia Vasquez Canizares

Natalia Vasquez-Canizares, MD, is an Attending Physician at Montefiore and an Assistant Professor of Pediatric Rheumatology at our Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Since joining the Montefiore team, her clinical focus has been pediatric rheumatic diseases, including juvenile idiopathic arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, juvenile scleroderma, juvenile dermatomyositis, and vasculitis.

In 2009, Dr. Vasquez-Canizares received her Doctor of Medicine degree at Universidad de La Sabana in Chia, Colombia. During her final year at Universidad de La Sabana, Dr. Vasquez-Canizares completed two medical internships at Hospital Universitario de La Samaritana in Bogota, Colombia, and at Hospital Universitario Austral in Pilar, Argentina. She began her postgraduate training in 2013 with a 3-year residency in Pediatrics at Cooper University Hospital and in 2019 completed a fellowship in Pediatric Rheumatology at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore (CHAM). Since 2018, she has also been completing a master’s program in Clinical Research at our Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Extending from her clinical focus, Dr. Vasquez-Canizares’ research is on juvenile scleroderma. Her work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and abstracts, and was awarded for best trainee abstract at the 2019 Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance (CARRA) Annual Scientific Meeting. She is an active member of the scleroderma work group within CARRA and is recipient of a grant by this organization to study treatment therapies in juvenile scleroderma. Beginning in 2013, Dr. Vasquez-Canizares has been a part of a Pediatric Vasculitis Initiative with CHAM focusing on the chronic childhood vasculitis registry aiming to characterize the individual rare diseases to improve patient outcomes.

From 2015 to 2016, Dr. Vasquez-Canizares was the recipient of the Sidney J. Sussman Award for outstanding contribution in teaching, awarded by the Cooper University Hospital. In 2019 she also received an award for Outstanding Achievement in the Teaching of Medical Students by the Leo M. Davidoff Society of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Vasquez-Canizares is board certified by the American Board of Pediatrics and is a member of numerous professional societies, including the American College of Rheumatology, the American Medical Association, and the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance.