Joelle St-Pierre

Dr. Joëlle St-Pierre is a gastroenterologist and Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary, where she specializes in inflammatory bowel disease and intestinal ultrasound. She completed her internal medicine and gastroenterology training at the University of Calgary, followed by advanced IBD fellowship training at the University of Chicago. She also holds a PhD in immunology, with prior research focused on macrophage signalling and gut–immune interactions.

Dr. St-Pierre’s clinical and research interests center on improving personalized care for patients with IBD through better disease monitoring, risk stratification, and treatment optimization. Her work integrates intestinal ultrasound, body composition assessment, and translational biomarkers to understand how inflammation extends beyond the bowel wall. A major focus of her current research is the role of adiposity, visceral adipose tissue, mesenteric fat, and metabolic inflammation in IBD disease activity, treatment response, and long-term outcomes. She is particularly interested in moving beyond traditional measures such as BMI to better capture the complex relationship between obesity, fat distribution, immune activation, and IBD progression.

Her broader academic work includes studies on intestinal ultrasound in IBD, mesenteric fat wrapping in Crohn’s disease, obesity and metabolic therapies in IBD, and novel approaches to real-time disease monitoring.