Sankar Dass Navaneethan, MD, MS, MPH
Garabed Eknoyan MD Endowed Professor of Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine
The Garabed Eknoyan Award was created to recognize an individual who has promoted the mission of the National Kidney Foundation in Making Lives Better for people with kidney disease through exceptional contributions to key initiatives of NKF such as the Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (KDOQI®) or clinical research in the field of kidney disease.
Dr. Sankar Dass Navaneethan, MD, MS, MPH, is Garabed Eknoyan MD Endowed Professor of Medicine, Associate Chief at Section of Nephrology, Chief of Renal Section at Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, and lead for the Clinical trials section at Institute of Clinical and Translational Research, at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. He is a clinician scientist with major research interests in clinical trials in diabetic kidney disease, obesity and intentional weight loss in chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular disease in kidney disease, health services research and systematic reviews in Nephrology.
He has been a pioneer in utilizing electronic medical records to optimize care delivery in kidney disease population. He has authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications and is currently involved in multiple clinical studies and has received independent funding from both NIH and Veterans Administration. He currently serves as an associate editor for the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, section editor for Current Opinion in Nephrology and Hypertension, and has been appointed to editorial boards of other leading nephrology journals. Besides serving as chair of a NIH Study section, he also serves on various committees of the National Kidney Foundation (chair of the NKF Spring clinical meeting program committee-2025, Co-Chair of the KDOQI commentary on KDIGO CKD guidelines). He also is a workgroup member of the KDIGO DM and CKD guidelines, VA/DoD CKD Guidelines and ASN guidance statement.
Dr. Navaneethan is a clinician scientist with major research interests in clinical trials in diabetic kidney disease, obesity and intentional weight loss in chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular disease in kidney disease, health services research and systematic reviews in Nephrology.