Member Biographies

Lucky Jain, M.D.

Co- Chair of Working Group
George W. Brumley, Jr. Professor and Chairman of Pediatrics, Emory University
Chief Pediatrician, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta

Dr. Jain serves as the Executive Director of the Emory + Children’s Pediatric Institute. Dr. Jain is a neonatologist with special interest in respiratory disorders of the newborn. He is the editor of the North American Clinics in Perinatology and serves as the Faculty-in Chief of the Neonatology Boards Review Program. In 2015, Dr. Jain was appointed Scientific Chairman of the International Neonatology Association and was elected president in 2019.

He has received numerous awards including the Most Distinguished Physician of the Year award from the Association of American Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), the Pediatric Pioneer award from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and the Lifetime Achievement award from the National Neonatology Forum of India. Dr. Jain is a strong proponent of wellness and resilience and has been practicing Vipassana meditation for nearly a decade.

Uma M. Reddy, M.D., M.P.H.

Co- Chair of Working Group
Professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology
Vice Chair, Research and Professor of Population and Family Health
Columbia University

Dr. Reddy is a practicing Maternal-Fetal Medicine specialist and clinical researcher for the past 20 years, Dr. Reddy is known for her groundbreaking research in stillbirth, preterm birth, labor management and maternal health.

Prior to assuming the role of MFM Division Director at the Yale School of Medicine in 2018, Dr. Reddy worked as a Medical Officer in the NICHD Pregnancy and Perinatology Branch and served as the project scientist for multiple multisite collaborative studies, including the Stillbirth Collaborative Research Network, Genomics and Proteomics Network for Preterm Birth Research and Nulliparous Pregnancy Outcomes Study Monitoring Mothers-to-Be.

At Columbia University, Dr. Reddy has been an active clinical researcher as the Principal Investigator for multiple NIH grants including the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units Network (MFMU), Maternal Health Research Center of Excellence NY Community-Hospital-Academic Maternal Health Equity Partnerships and Glycemic Observation and Metabolic Outcomes in Mothers and Offspring study. Dr. Reddy has published extensively on the topic of stillbirth with over 300 peer reviewed articles, many of which have been published in high-impact journals such as NEJM and JAMA.

Wanda Barfield, M.D., M.P.H.

Director, Division of Reproductive Health, Center for Disease Control and Prevention
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Dr. Barfield is the Director of the Division of Reproductive Health (DRH) within the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She also serves as Assistant Surgeon General in the U.S. Public Health Service. She received her medical and public health degrees from Harvard University and completed a pediatrics residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and a neonatal-perinatal medicine fellowship at Harvard’s Joint Program in Neonatology (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Beth Israel Hospital, and Children’s Hospital, Boston). Before joining CDC in 2000, she was Director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Emory University School of Medicine. She is a Fellow with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and is the CDC liaison to the AAP Section on Perinatal Pediatrics (SoPPe) and Committee on Fetus and Newborn (COFN). She continues to do clinical work in neonatology, providing care to critically ill newborns in Atlanta, Georgia.

Joanne Cacciatore, Ph.D.

Professor, School of Social Work at Arizona State University
Director, Graduate Certificate in Trauma and Bereavement Program Specializes in Mental Health

Dr. Cacciatore is in the top 2% of scholars in her field in the world and has more than 80 published studies in top tier journals, focusing on various aspects of traumatic grief. She is also the founder of the MISS Foundation, an international NGO that serves grieving parents, and the Selah Carefarm, the first ecotherapeutic space in the world that brings rescued animals together with those who have suffered traumatic grief. Dr. Cacciatore served on Oprah and Prince Harry’s Mental Health Committee from 2018-2020 and in 2017 published a best selling book Bearing the Unbearable: Love, loss, and the heartbreaking path of grief, now available in 7 languages. She also published an Audible Great Course (Understanding and Coping with Grief) and leads meditations called “Grieving” in the Calm app.

Alison Cahill, M.D., MSCI

Associate Dean, Translational Research
University of Texas at Austin
Perinatology

Dr. Cahill serves as the associate dean of translational research at Dell Medical School. She is also a professor in the Department of Women’s Health and the director of the Health Transformation Research Institute. She is a nationally recognized scientist in the area of perinatology and has over 200 peer-reviewed publications on the subject. She has received awards for her efforts in research, most recently the Award of Research Excellence from the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the Research Excellence Award from the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

She is chair of the Committee on Obstetric Clinical Consensus (formerly Obstetric Practice) for the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She also serves as editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology: Global Reports and is the senior editor for the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine editions of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Amanda Cohn, M.D.

National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD)
Division of Birth Defects & Infant Disorders (DBDID)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Dr. Cohn is the Director of the Division of Birth Defects and Infant Disorders. She previously served as Executive Secretariat of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and Chief Medical Officer for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD).

Prior to that role, she served as the Acting Director for the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities and Deputy Director for Immunization Services Division for NCIRD. Dr. Cohn came to the CDC in 2004 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer and joined the Meningitis and Vaccine Preventable Diseases Branch in 2006, where she focused on prevention and control meningococcal disease, both domestically and internationally. From 2007 to 2014, she was the CDC lead for the ACIP Meningococcal Vaccines Work Group.

She is board certified in Pediatrics and is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She obtained her medical degree from Emory University School of Medicine and completed a residency in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center in Massachusetts.

Ada Dieke, P.H., M.P.H.

Health Scientist, Division of Reproductive Health
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Dr. Dieke is serving as Health Equity Lead where she supports efforts to strengthen relationships and integrate equity into the division science, programs, products, and more. Dr. Dieke served on the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) team in the Women’s Health and Fertility Branch (WHFB) of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Reproductive Health (DRH), as a PRAMS program manager for the Utah PRAMS and Utah Study of Associated Risks of Stillbirth (SOARS) program and member of the PRAMS Phase 9 Questionnaire Revision Team. Formerly an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer in DRH, Dr. Dieke has cultivated her interests to help improve maternal, child, and adolescent health, health equity, social determinants of health, and global health. As a CDC prevention specialist assigned to the San Antonio Health Department’s STD/HIV Clinic in San Antonio, Texas, she coordinated congenital syphilis prevention activities, including fetal death certificate reviews, and supported HIV programmatic efforts.

Donald Dudley, M.D.

Professor, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine
University of Virginia School of Medicine
Specializes in research into the causes and management of preterm labor and birth, stillbirth, and recurrent pregnancy loss. Interest in the immunology of pregnancy, including preeclampsia and recurrent pregnancy loss

Dr. Dudley is currently a professor in the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, where he served as director of the MFM Division from 2014-2022. He completed a B.A. degree in microbiology at the University of Texas at Austin in 1976 and then his medical degree at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA) in 1984. Dr. Dudley completed residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in 1988 followed by a fellowship in maternal-fetal medicine at the University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics from 1988-1991. He remained on faculty at Utah until 1999, when he returned to UTHSCSA to the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He was professor at UTHSCSA until 2014 when he was recruited to UVA. Dr. Dudley was actively involved in the NICHD-sponsored Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units Network, serving as alternate P.I. for the University of Utah (1996-1999), and for UTHSCSA (1999-2001), and as a member of the MFMU Advisory Board. Dr. Dudley was the PI for the San Antonio Center for the Study of Stillbirth, the UTHSCSA component of the NICHD-sponsored Stillbirth Collaborative Research Network. He was co-founder and obstetrics co-chair for the Virginia Neonatal Perinatal Collaborative (2104-2022), the CDC-recognized perinatal quality collaborative for Virginia. His special interests are in the immunology of normal and abnormal pregnancy, the pathophysiology of preterm birth, recurrent pregnancy loss, stillbirth, and clinical perinatology.

Andrew Fullerton

Deputy Director, Federal Affairs
March of Dimes

Mr. Fullerton is the Deputy Director of Federal Affairs at March of Dimes directing policy portfolios that include social determinants of health and health equity, stillbirth, premature birth, maternal and infant mortality and morbidity, and data surveillance. He is also a co-founder of the Government Affairs Industry Network and a founding board member of the Grassroots Professional Network. With two decades of government relations experience, he has provided strategic relationship building, legislative, and public affairs services to a variety of organizations.

Karen Gibbins, M.D., MSCI

Associate Professor, Obstetrics & Gynecology
Associate Division Director/Outpatient Clinic Director, Maternal-Fetal Medicine
Oregon Health & Science University
Specializes in Maternal-Fetal Medicine, perinatology, and pregnancy care

Dr. Gibbins first became interested in stillbirth research and excellence in clinical care during MFM fellowship at the University of Utah. During her NICHD Women’s Reproductive Health Research Scholar grant, she focused on prediction of preventable stillbirths. She also experienced her own stillbirth in 2018. Currently, she develops and studies novel predictive models including biomarkers of adverse obstetric outcomes due to placental insufficiency with the goal of reducing preventable stillbirth. She also works to improve decision support for recently bereaved parents and is an expert in parent and family centered care both during stillbirth and in pregnancy after loss.

Katherine Gold, M.D., M.S.W., M.S.

Associate Professor
Department of Family Medicine and the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology
University of Michigan (UM)
Specializes in Mental Health

Dr. Gold is board certified in family medicine, holds master’s degrees in both Social Work and in Health and Health Services Research, and has completed two research fellowships and a fellowship with the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Gold’s research focuses on bereavement after stillbirth and infant death, racial and ethnic disparities in stillbirth care, maternal mental health, physician wellness and mental health, and care for patients at free clinics. She has researched stillbirth prevention and care in sub-Saharan Africa and was the Chair of the International Stillbirth Alliance. Clinically, Dr. Gold works at UM as a family medicine physician, does inpatient obstetrics, and serves as the medical director for a free prenatal and infant care clinic in Detroit serving a high-risk, low-income population with the goal of reducing perinatal and maternal mortality.

Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman, M.D.

Chair, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences
University of California, San Diego Health School of Medicine
Perinatologist who specializes in caring for women with high-risk pregnancies

Dr. Gyamfi-Bannerman holds the Samuel SC Yen Endowed Chair at UCSD and is a Professor with Tenure. She is board certified in both Obstetrics & Gynecology and Maternal-Fetal Medicine and focuses her career on obstetric complications with a primary focus on preterm birth prevention. Dr. Gyamfi is a proficient, NIH funded researcher whose research has focused on preterm birth prediction and prevention and in interventions to improve outcomes for those delivering preterm, namely antenatal corticosteroids.

She is currently the Steering Committee Chair of a multi-center NIHLBI ENRICH study focused on improving maternal and childhood outcomes for pregnant individuals from poorly resources backgrounds, and Steering Committee Chair for the Preventing preeclampsia: Evaluating, AspiRin Low-dose regimens following risk Screening (PEARLS study), assessing aspirin dosing in sub-Saharan Africa. Recently, she was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, a national medical honor society. Finally she serves on the NICHD Council.

Debbie Haine

Founder, The 2 Degrees Foundation; Stillbirth Parent and Advocate

Debbie Haine Vijayvergiya’s daughter, Autumn Joy, was still born in July 2011. Desperate to give Autumn’s short life a purpose, Debbie has since become a powerful advocate at the state and national levels, working tirelessly to put stillbirth on the map in this country. Over the years she has developed and championed multiple pieces of legislation that focused on improving stillbirth data collection, awareness, education, and bereavement care for families. Most recently has been working with Members of Congress and their staff to advance federal stillbirth legislation, the bicameral and bipartisan Stillbirth Health Improvement and Education (SHINE) for Autumn Act, H.R. 5012/S. 2647, which is named for her daughter. The SHINE for Autumn Act aims to lower the staggering rate of stillbirth by taking critical steps to invest in research, data collection, education, reporting, and awareness—all of which will help put us on the path to end the stillbirth crisis in the US. Debbie resides in New Jersey with her husband and two children.

Carol Hogue, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Professor Emerita of Epidemiology
Jules & Uldeen Terry Professor of Maternal and Child Health
Rollins School of Public Health of Emory
Expert in Maternal and Child Health, reproductive health, social epidemiology, women’s health

Dr. Hogue is the former Director of the federal Centers for Disease Control, Division of Reproductive Health (1988-92). At the CDC, Dr. Hogue initiated many of the current CDC reproductive health programs, including the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), the National Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System, and the National Infant Mortality Surveillance (NIMS) project that launched the national and state-level development and use of linked birth and death records. Dr. Hogue led the first research on maternal morbidities that was the precursor to the safe motherhood initiative, and the initial innovative research on racial disparities in preterm delivery that found that college-educated African American women had a three-fold risk of very preterm delivery, when compared to college-educated White women.

At Emory she was also the Director of the Women’s and Children’s Center and the HRSA-sponsored Center of Excellence in MCH Education, Science, and Practice and a co-Principal Investigator for the NICHD-sponsored Stillbirth Collaborative Research Network. Dr. Hogue was President of the Society for Epidemiologic Research (1988-89) and President of the American College of Epidemiology (2002-2004).

Among her many honors, Dr. Hogue received the MCH Coalition’s National Effective Practice Award in 2002 and Greg Alexander Award for Advancing Knowledge (2016). In 2019, the Society for Epidemiology Research established the Carol J. Rowland Hogue Award for Outstanding Mid-Career Achievement to recognize a mid-career scientist who has made an exceptional contribution to the practice of epidemiology.

Isabelle Horon, Dr.PH., M.P.H.

Acting Deputy Director and Chief, Data Dissemination and Partner Engagement Branch
National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Division of Vital Statistics (DVS)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Dr. Horon is currently the Acting Deputy Director and Chief of the Data Dissemination and Partner Engagement Branch of the Division of Vital Statistics at CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

Dr. Horon served for many years as the Director of the Vital Statistics Administration at the Maryland Department of Health. Dr. Horon is trained as a perinatal epidemiologist and is a graduate of Penn State University, the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Denise Jamieson, M.D., M.P.H.

Vice President, Medical Affairs
University of Iowa
Work focuses on emerging infectious diseases in pregnancy and gynecology

Dr. Jamieson is the vice president for medical affairs and dean of the UI Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa. As vice president for medical affairs, she is responsible for integrated planning and operations for UI Health Care, which comprises UI Hospitals & Clinics; the UI Carver College of Medicine; and UI Physicians, the health system’s multispecialty physician group practice. Jamieson’s scientific work focuses on emerging infectious diseases in pregnancy, including in the areas of influenza, Ebola, Zika, COVID, and maternal immunization. In addition, her work incorporates a population health perspective, with projects addressing health disparities and social determinants of health in the context of maternal morbidity and other adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Stephanie Leonard, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Dunlevie Maternal-Fetal Medicine Center
Stanford University
Transdisciplinary Perinatal Health Research, with a focus on pregnancy-related morbidities, epidemiology, and severe pregnancy-related complications with a focus on health equity among birthing people

Dr. Leonard‘s research goal is to advance equitable, positive health experiences and outcomes for pregnant individuals. She is interested in applying transdisciplinary methods to perinatal health research, with a focus on studying pregnancy-related morbidities in large data sources. She also serves as a collaborator and mentor on a variety of obstetrics studies, including clinical trials, prospective and retrospective observational studies, and qualitative studies. Dr. Leonard trained in epidemiology at UCLA (MS) and UC Berkeley (PhD) before completing a postdoc in Neonatal and Developmental Medicine at Stanford.

Monica Longo, M.D., Ph.D.

Obstetrician-Gynecologist
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

Dr. Monica Longo is an Obstetrician-Gynecologist with subspecialty training in Maternal Fetal Medicine. She also holds a PhD degree in Preventive Medicine and Community Health. Dr. Longo’s main research interests focus on the maternal physiological adaptations to pregnancy, and in particular the relationship with cardiovascular and metabolic disease in the mother and offspring. Dr. Longo received her medical degree in 1996 from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Modena, Italy. In June 1997, she joined the research team at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) where she earned her Master and PhD degrees, followed by residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology. While at UTMB, and with funding from NICHD and NHLBI, Dr. Longo developed a novel transgenic animal model of fetal programming. In 2013, Dr. Longo joined the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHSC) as an Associate Professor where she established a basic science research laboratory focusing on pregnancy complications using animal models. While at UTHSC, Dr. Longo pursued fellowship training in Maternal Fetal Medicine between 2016 and 2018. Dr. Longo was an active member of the faculty at UTHSC prior to joining NICHD in January 2021 with both clinical and research activities. Throughout her career, Dr. Longo has mentored several graduate students, fellows, residents, and faculty. At NICHD By focusing on pregnancy, Dr. Longo’s ultimate career goal is to improve outcome for mothers and children throughout the lifespan from preconception to later in life. While at NICHD Dr. Longo has been active as the project scientist for the maternal fetal medicine unit network and is the program officer in several clinical trial. Dr. Longo is leading several initiatives in the maternal morbidity and mortality arena as well in advancing Innovative technology and intervention to Improve fetal assessment during pregnancy.

Jenna Nobles, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology
University of Wisconsin Madison
Demography of Inequality; Fertility, Families, and Households; Health and the Life Course; Spatial and Environmental Demography

Dr. Nobles is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is also the Director of the Center for Demography and Ecology, the Training Director for the Collaborative for Reproductive Equity, and on the Executive Committee of UW-Madison’s Health Disparities Research post-doctoral scholars’ program. She studies how people make decisions about migration and fertility and the implications of these decisions for population change. Her current projects include the links between pregnancy survival and the health of cohorts, residential change and crime, anticipatory migration behavior, demographic responses to the diffusion of health risks, and the reconstruction of hidden population traits. Dr. Nobles’ research has been funded by the NIH, NSF, William T. Grant Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Mana Parast, M.D., Ph.D.

Director of Perinatal Pathology
University of California, San Diego
Physician-scientist with clinical and research expertise in placental development and pathologyPhysician-scientist with clinical and research expertise in placental development and pathology

Dr. Parast received her MD and PhD from the University of Virginia and subsequently trained in Anatomic Pathology at Emory University Hospital, and in Women’s and Perinatal Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. At UC San Diego, her research has ranged from placental pathology in the setting of cord accident and stillbirth, to the use of stem cells to develop “disease-in-a-dish” models for studying placenta-based disorders of pregnancy, including pre-eclampsia and fetal growth restriction. Most recently, in collaboration with her colleagues in obstetrics/gynecology and neonatology, she has established the Center for Perinatal Discovery at UC San Diego, with the goal of bringing together researchers of diverse backgrounds to address problems related to obstetric and perinatal health.

Tina Pattara-Lau, M.D., FACOG

Maternal Child Health Consultant
Office of Clinical and Preventive Services (OCPS)
Indian Health Service (IHS)
Obstetrics/Gynecology, subject matter expert for the Indian Health Service (IHS)

CDR Tina Pattara-Lau is the Maternal and Child Health Consultant with the Indian Health Service (IHS) Office of Clinical and Preventive Services (OCPS). In this role, she serves as subject matter expert for the IHS, develops national programs and policies, and collaborates with federal, tribal, and community resources to optimize patient access to quality care. She began her IHS career in 2015 as an OB/GYN providing comprehensive care to the American Indian/Alaska Native community at Phoenix Indian Medical Center (PIMC), Parker and Peach Springs Indian Health Centers, and Valleywise Health Medical Center. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she developed modified guidelines for OB/GYN care including delivery of telehealth prenatal care, vaccine education for patients, and multidisciplinary simulation training for Obstetric Readiness in the Emergency Department (ObRED).

Jennita Reefhuis, Ph.D.

Branch Chief, Birth Defects Monitoring and Research
Division of Birth Defects & Infant Disorders (DBDID)
National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Dr. Reefhuis is Branch Chief for the Birth Defects Monitoring and Research Branch in the Division of Birth Defects and Infant Disorders at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, GA, USA. She has a PhD in epidemiology from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands where she worked at the EUROCAT Northern Netherlands birth defects registry. She joined the Birth Defects Branch at CDC in 2001 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer when she worked on anthrax in New Jersey and assessed the association between cochlear implants and meningitis. Since then, Jennita has worked extensively on the National Birth Defects Prevention Study, a case control study of more than 30 birth defects. She served as principal investigator for Georgia and as the lead epidemiologist for the entire study. Birth defects risk factors that are of great interest to her include fertility treatments, antidepressants, antibiotics and occupational and environmental exposures. She has published more than 100 papers, most of them on risk factors for birth defects. She currently serves as Branch Chief and provides leadership to birth defects surveillance and research activities as well as work on stillbirths, neonatal abstinence syndrome, and long-term outcomes of birth defects, specifically congenital heart defects, spina bifida, and muscular dystrophies.

George Saade, M.D.

Professor and Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Associate Dean for Women’s Health
EVMS Foundation Chair for Women’s Health
Eastern Virginia Medical School
Expert in preeclampsia, preterm labor and fetal physiology and therapy

Dr. Saade is a Professor and Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Associate Dean for Women’s Health, and EVMS Foundation Chair for Women’s Health at the Eastern Virginia Medical School. Dr. Saade was president of the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine and Chair of its Health Policy and Advocacy Committee. He is currently the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Perinatology. Dr. Saade has served on a number of national and international advisory committees and scientific review panels, including NIH, CDC, March of Dimes, ACOG, Wellbeing/Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and the Health Research Council of New Zealand. He is the principal investigator on two (2) NIH-funded clinical research networks and the co-investigator on three (3) others. Dr. Saade is certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and is an examiner. His clinical area of expertise revolves around adverse pregnancy outcomes and long-term health for mother and offspring. He has authored more than 500 peer-reviewed publications and is the co-editor of the Maternal Medicine and the Critical Care Obstetrics textbooks. He has been voted as Best Doctor and selected to Super Doctors several years in a row.

Mykiong Shin, Dr.PH., M.P.H., R.N.

Epidemiologist, Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS)
Division of Reproductive Health
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Dr. Shin is a maternal and child health epidemiologist with more than 17 years of experience designing, managing, conducting, and communicating health research using large surveillance databases such as national vital records, administration data, and environmental exposure data. Before joining PRAMS, she worked for various CDC surveillance programs, such as the Environmental Public Health Tracking Program, the Global Youth Tobacco Survey, and the Birth Defects Surveillance Program. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Yonsei University and a doctoral degree in Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her professional interests include the impact of environmental exposure on reproductive birth outcomes, environmental justice, and applications of data science in public health. Her publications focus on the prevalence and survival rates of children with birth defects, reproductive birth outcomes associated with environmental exposure, and data quality improvement in surveillance and survey methods.

Robert M. (Bob) Silver, M.D.

Physician, University of Utah

Dr. Silver is a maternal fetal medicine physician at the University of Utah. He holds the John A. Dixon Presidential Endowed Chair and is Professor and Chairman of the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He has had a clinical and research interest in stillbirth for over 30 years.

Catherine Vladutiu, Ph.D.

Senior Epidemiologist, Office of Epidemiology and Research
Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s (MCHB)
Health Services and Resources Administration

Catherine Vladutiu is a Senior Epidemiologist in HRSA Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s (MCHB) Office of Epidemiology and Research. In this role, she provides substantive and methodological expertise and leadership in maternal health and perinatal epidemiology. She also provides technical leadership and consultation on performance measurement, evaluation, and other data and research-related needs for MCHB’s maternal health investments. Dr. Vladutiu has conducted epidemiologic research pertaining to women and children’s health for over twenty years and has published more than 75 peer-reviewed articles. Her research focuses on maternal cardiovascular health, maternal morbidity and mortality, and emergency care utilization during pregnancy and the postpartum period. Dr. Vladutiu has a PhD in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MPH in maternal and child health epidemiology from the University of Rochester.

Maeve Wallace, Ph.D.

Reproductive Epidemiologist and an Associate Professor
Department of Social, Behavioral, and Population Sciences
Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
Reproductive and perinatal epidemiology, focus on the social, structural, and policy determinants of maternal and child health and health inequities including structural racism, violence, health policy and human rights

Dr. Wallace is a reproductive epidemiologist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Social, Behavioral, and Population Sciences at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine where she is also the Associate Director of the Mary Amelia Center for Women’s Health Equity Research. Her primary research interests focus on social, structural, and policy conditions that shape trends in maternal health and underly persistent population health inequities in the US. She works in close collaboration with governmental and community-based partners in order to disseminate relevant epidemiologic research for the purposes of establishing evidence-based policy and programmatic interventions to prevent maternal mortality and promote maternal health and well-being for all persons. Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. She received her PhD degree in reproductive and perinatal epidemiology from Tulane University in 2013 and subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Epidemiology Branch of the Division of Intramural Population Health Research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Ronald J. Wapner, M.D.

Director, Reproductive Genetics
Columbia University

Dr. Wapner is the Director of Reproductive Genetics and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Prior to Columbia University, Dr. Wapner was a Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Drexel University College of Medicine and taught at Thomas Jefferson University for 22 years where he also served as the Director of Maternal Fetal Medicine. Dr. Wapner is an internationally known physician and researcher specializing in reproductive genetics. He pioneered the development of chorionic villus sampling (CVS) and multi-fetal reduction. He has authored or co-authored over 450 publications, and he has been an active investigator in the area of Maternal-Fetal Medicine (MFM).

Jill Wieber Lens, J.D.

Robert A. Leflar Professor of Law
Associate Dean for Research & Faculty Development
University of Arkansas School of Law
Robert A. Leflar Law Center

Professor Wieber Lens is a leading expert on legal recognition and treatment of stillbirth. She has written about stillbirth within the contexts of tort law, remedies law, criminal law, health and public health law, and reproductive rights and justice. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in the Michigan Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Vanderbilt Law Review, Washington University Law Review, Iowa Law Review, Boston University Law Review, UC Davis Law Review, and Boston College Law Review. Lens is also a stillbirth mom. Her son Caleb was stillborn at 37 weeks pregnant in 2017.

Monica H. Wojcik, M.D., M.P.H.

Director, Neonatal Genomics Program, Boston Children’s Hospital
Medical Director, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research
Ongoing research strives to understand how clinical genetics/genomic medicine can improve the care of high-risk neonates

Dr. Wojcik is an assistant professor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School who specializes both clinically and academically in rare diseases affecting the fetus and neonate. Following her pediatric residency, she pursued combined fellowship training in both neonatology and genetics and subsequently obtained her Master of Public Health degree to augment her clinical effectiveness and health services research.

Dr. Wojciks research focuses on the application of genomic medicine in the perinatal setting, particularly related to genetic diagnosis in the neonatal intensive care unit, understanding genetic causes of perinatal mortality via genomic autopsy, and addressing inequities in rare disease genomics. In her clinical practice, she attends in the neonatal intensive care unit at Boston Children’s Hospital and on the inpatient genetics service, consults prenatally for complex fetal cases, and runs a multidisciplinary developmental follow-up clinic for infants with genetic conditions.