Carol “Mimi” Kao was born in Blacksburg, Virginia. Her parents emigrated from Taiwan to the United States where her father pursued his PhD in aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech, some of her earliest childhood memories are cheering on the Hokies. In kindergarten, she remembers being hospitalized after many days of fever and turning beet red and then telling everyone at school she had something called “Kawasaki disease.”

She attended college and medical school at the Ohio State University. Her first clinical rotation as a third year medical student was in the Pediatric Infectious Diseases inpatient ward at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and she absolutely loved the physicians she worked with and the breadth of pathology she saw. She then moved to New York City where she met her husband, Edon, on their first inpatient month intern year.   

She continued her training in pediatric infectious diseases at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Children’s Hospital at Montefiore. There, she developed an interest in maternal vaccines and the immune correlates of protection in infants. She continued these interests after fellowship working at the Emory University in its Vaccine Treatment and Evaluation Unit.  

Since moving to St. Louis in 2020, Mimi attends on the Immunocompromised Pediatric Infectious Diseases inpatient service and outpatient clinic. She is, also, involved in multiple multicenter clinical trials, including the pediatric COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials at St Louis Children’s Hospital. Mimi and Edon have enjoyed exploring the many Missouri state parks and taking many walks in Shaw Park. They welcomed two new additions to the family this year- their beautiful Pembroke Welsh Corgi Mango and their now 7 week-old daughter Lili. In her free time, she enjoys traveling the world, running and hiking. Mimi and her family are looking forward to exploring more of St. Louis this upcoming year.