Gretchen Youssef, MS, RD, CDCES, program director of the MedStar Diabetes Institute is an experienced Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist (CDCES) and Registered Dietitian who serves diabetes clinical, education, and quality improvement initiatives across the MedStar Health System. Her areas of interest and expertise include diabetes self-management education and medical nutrition therapy to improve health outcomes, and translational research addressing diabetes primary prevention and best practices for type 2 diabetes care management. She served as program manager in the MedStar Health Research Institute’s National Institutes of Health Diabetes Prevention Program. She also has led the MedStar Diabetes Institute’s system-wide ADA Education Recognition Program since it was established in 2000. In this role she coordinates the MedStar Health diabetes self-management education program, working with endocrinologists and CDCES across 10 diabetes self-management education and support sites and primary care and diabetes care practices. She has also been engaged in the development and conduct of the Diabetes Boot Camp research for patients with type 2 diabetes. In this study she provided diabetes education/medical nutrition therapy and support trial conduct and was co-manager and co-lead for the Diabetes Boot Camp/ Pathway pilot study. She is presently responsible for transition of the Diabetes Boot Camp/Pathway into standard of care and clinical practice in the MedStar Health System.

She is committed to improving the lives of people with diabetes, especially those patients who are challenged by low health literacy, socioeconomic, and mental health barriers which often prevent them from receiving optimal care. Finally, she is an active member of the ADA, serving as President, Health Care and Education in 2019, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists from 2021 to 2024.