2025 Emerging Investigator Award

May Y. Choi, MD, MPH, FRCPC

Dr. May Choi is a rheumatologist and clinician-scientist at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. Her research focuses on biomarker discovery and validation for the prediction of clinical outcomes in autoimmune rheumatic diseases and the prevention of autoimmune disease development and disease-related complications. She leads an immunology research laboratory (Artificial Intelligence and Autoimmune Diagnostics or AI.Dx) and biobank for local, national, and international collaborators. She obtained her Medical Degree at the University of Alberta in 2014 (Edmonton, AB) and completed both her Internal Medicine (2017) and Rheumatology Subspecialty training (2019) at the University of Calgary (Calgary, AB). She completed a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology at Harvard University and a lupus fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston, MA). In 2020, she started on faculty at the University of Calgary, where she is now an Associate Professor and a member of the McCaig Institute for Bone and Joint Health. Dr. Choi is also the Associate Director of MitogenDx Laboratory and the Associate Director of Translational Research at the University of Calgary Lupus Centre of Excellence.

Dr. Choi was funded by several career development grants including the Lupus Foundation of America’s Gary S. Gilkeson Career Development Award and the Arthritis Society’s Stars Career Development Award. She received a Canadian Institutes of Health Research project grant and a Canadian Foundation of Innovation (CFI) John R. Evans Leaders Award in her first and second year on faculty, respectively. In total, she is a nominated PI or co-investigator on 31 peer-reviewed grants totaling more than $12.9 million. To date, she has published 87 peer-reviewed articles and four book chapters with an h-index of 23 and 1,640 citations. She has supervised and mentored 22 trainees at all stages of career development. Her most recent awards include the prestigious Lupus Foundation of America’s 2023 Mary Betty Stevens Young Investigator Prize, Calgary Avenue Magazine’s 2023 Top 40 Under 40, and the Association of Medical Laboratory Immunologists 2023 Future Leader and 2023 Young Investigator Award.