Leslie R. Walker, MD, is an associate professor and Chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at University of Washington School of Medicine and Seattle Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Leslie Walker has conducted research on adolescent health-risk behaviors, including delaying early sexual debut in young adolescents, ADHD and smoking initiation, parental involvement in treatment and prevention of substance abuse, as well as research on healthcare transition for children with chronic illness moving from pediatric to adult healthcare systems. She is currently interested in parental involvement in prevention of early acquisition of adolescent risk behaviors, specifically around substance abuse.

Dr. Walker was raised in San Jose, California and attended Stanford University for her undergraduate education. After graduation she moved to the Midwest to study medicine at the University of Illinois, School of Medicine at Rockford and trained in pediatrics at the University of Chicago Wyler Children’s Hospital.  Dr. Walker returned to California to attend her first year of adolescent medicine fellowship at the University of California, San Diego. She completed her last 2 years of her adolescent medicine fellowship training at the University of California, San Francisco. From 1996-2007, Dr. Walker was a faculty member and Chief of the Adolescent Medicine Section at Georgetown University School of Medicine. In addition, she served as Medical Director for the Woodson High School Teen Clinic supported by the Washington, D.C. Department of Health.

Dr. Walker currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Society for Adolescent Medicine and has represented the Society on a number of national issues, ranging from vaccination of adolescents to medical education on substance abuse. She is also sits on the Youth Suicide Prevention Program’s Board of Directors located in Washington State. Additionally, she is serves on the Federal Drug Administration Non-Prescription Drugs Advisory Committee. Dr. Walker was appointed to the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Adolescent Health Care Services and Models of Care for Treatment, Prevention and Healthy Development, which recently released the report “Adolescent Health Services: Missing Opportunities.”