2026 Women’s Health Research Symposium Program

Jerome (Jeff) Federspiel, MD PhD is an Assistant Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology, secondarily appointed in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Population Health Sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine. A maternal-fetal medicine subspecialist, Dr. Federspiel’s clinical and research focus is the care of pregnancies with hematologic and cardiovascular complications. He completed his medical training at the University of North Carolina, his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and his fellowship at Duke University Medical Center. Despite living in Chapel Hill, Dr. Federspiel’s basketball loyalties remain dark blue, as he was a Duke undergraduate.

Chuan Hong, PhD is currently an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics at Duke University. She received her Ph.D. in biostatistics from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She has been a postdoctoral fellow in both biostatistics and biomedical informatics, and an Instructor of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. Her primary research interests have been focused on developing statistical and machine learning methods with an emphasis on artificial intelligence in healthcare system, predictive modeling, high throughput phenotyping and precision medicine using large scale biomedical data. She has extensive expertise in data harmonization based on representation learning, information retrieval, language model and fairness-aware predictive modeling. She has published 100+ peer-review papers in leading statistical, informatics and biomedical journals such as JAMA, JASA, Biometrics, JAMIA, and npj Digital Medicine.

Kirti Magudia, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Radiology at Duke University School of Medicine. She completed fellowship in abdominal imaging and ultrasound at the University of California, San Francisco and Diagnostic Radiology Residency at Brigham & Women's Hospital. Her research centers on high-level applications of machine learning in radiology, including CT-based body composition analysis and prostate MR, which was facilitated by 7 dedicated months at the MGH/BWH Center for Clinical Data Science and a year long T32 research fellowship in the Biomedical Imaging for Clinical Scientists Program at UCSF. She was the founding resident chair of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Women in the Radiology Program and has extensively advocated for family-friendly trainee policies. Dr. Magudia is a graduate of the Tri-institutional MD/PhD program of Weill Cornell, Sloan-Kettering, and Rockefeller University, where she completed her Ph.D. in cell and cancer biology in the laboratory of Alan Hall developing a novel 3D cell culture model of colon tumorigenesis.

Courtney Van Houtven, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences (DPHS), Duke University School of Medicine and Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy.  She is also the Director of the Center to Advance the Science of Complex Care: Aging, Disability and Equity at DPHS. Dr. Van Houtven’s aging and economics research interests encompass long-term care financing, intra-household decision-making, and unpaid / family care. She examines how family caregiving affects health care utilization, expenditures, health, and work outcomes of care recipients and caregivers. She also strives to build evidence around which policies and strategies effectively support family caregivers in their role.

Dr. Edwards is a pediatric cardiologist specialized in cardiovascular imaging of the fetus and child. She earned her medical degree from Georgetown University and completed residency training in Pediatrics at New York-Presbyterian / Weill Cornell followed by fellowships in Pediatric Cardiology and Pediatric Advanced Cardiac Imaging at Texas Children’s Hospital and Stanford, respectively. She served as an attending pediatric cardiologist at Seattle Children’s Hospital from 2019 – 2023 before joining the faculty at Duke University School of Medicine in 2023.

Dr. Edwards’ research focuses on the development of novel imaging technology, including machine learning-based applications, to improve diagnosis, management, and prognostication in pediatric and congenital heart disease. Her current work centers around pediatric imaging biomarkers in cancer treatment-related cardiomyopathy. Female sex is a risk factor for cardiomyopathy among childhood cancer survivors. As a BIRCWH scholar, Dr. Edwards investigates sex-based differences in the imaging pattern of cardiac injury following childhood chemotherapy and radiation exposure. She uses machine learning techniques to stratify childhood cancer survivors into phenotypically distinct groups with differential cardiomyopathy risk. Her overall goal is to enhance cardiomyopathy risk prediction and allow for more personalized clinical management for childhood cancer survivors. 

Dr. Jaleel received a Bachelor of Science in Biophysics from University of Alabama in Birmingham 2007. After graduation, she worked with European Institute of Women’s Health as a Fulbright scholar. She received both her Medical Degree and completed her residency in dermatology from University of Alabama in Birmingham School of Medicine. She then joined on as faculty at Duke in 2016 and completed a Master’s in Health Sciences through Duke’s Clinical Research Training Program.  

Dr. Jaleel’s research focuses on studying the role of sex hormones in skin inflammation as it relates to hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) disease pathogenesis. HS is a chronic inflammatory skin condition with acute painful flares that predominantly affects African-Americans, females, and those of lower socio-economic background. It tends to present around puberty and flares of disease have been noted surrounding menses. The role of hormonal fluctuations on disease activity remains to be fully elucidated and there is a desperate need for targeted therapy. Her early work on this topic has been funded by Dermatology Foundation, Skin of Color Society, and Duke School of Medicine Precision Genomics Collaboratory Fostering Interdisciplinary Genomic Science pilot grant. With the BIRCWH award and her team of multidisciplinary collaborators/mentors, Dr. Jaleel will further elucidate mechanisms by which hormone signaling controls skin inflammation with the future goal of identifying novel therapeutic targets.  Her other interests include developing tools to decrease disparities in health outcomes and promoting diversity in dermatology clinical trials.

Dr. Sadun earned her MD/PhD from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California and then completed her MedPeds Residency and Adult and Pediatric Rheumatology Fellowships at Duke University, where she is now an Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics.  Her clinical expertise lies in the care of adolescent and young adult patients as well as patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.  Dr. Sadun’s research focuses on improving outcomes for patients with childhood-onset lupus, a disease characterized by increased morbidity and mortality.

Through the BIRCWH award, Dr. Sadun leads the adaptation of a patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) designed to capture reasons for medication non-adherence in adult lupus patients, ensuring that the adapted tool is able to identify reasons for medication non-adherence in children, teens, and young adults with lupus.  Alongside the adherence PROM, she oversees the development of a lupus-specific PROM to assess lupus-related fatigue in adolescents and young adults. Together, these tools will enable clinicians and researchers to improve morbidity, mortality, and quality of life outcomes for individuals living with childhood-onset lupus.

Jamila Minga, PhD is a certified speech-language pathologists, clinical scientist, film producer, right hemisphere stroke advocate, and an Associate Professor with a primary appointment in the Department of Head and Neck Surgery & Communication Sciences and a secondary appointment in the Department of Neurology at Duke University School of Medicine. She is also affiliated with Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. Dr. Minga is a former BIRCWH Scholar with pioneering research that led to an NIH-NIDCD K23 grant award to explore the neuroanatomic correlates of language use after right hemisphere stroke, with recent funding approval for her NIH-NIDCD R01 grant to create a language use model using the RHDBank discourse protocol. Her research also includes collaborations with Duke physicians of neurology and hematology to advance science in the occurrence of communication and cognitive impairments in individuals with right hemisphere epilepsy and rare blood disorders, respectively. She serves as a research mentor to Duke University undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students in psychology, neuroscience, and biology.

Haley Arden Moss, MD MBA, is Associate Professor of Gynecologic Oncology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC, and is on faculty at the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC). She is the Director of the Breast and Gynecologic Oncology System of Excellence (BGSOE) through the National Oncology Program at VAMC. She received her medical degree from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a business degree at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at New York University and Bellevue Hospital, and fellowship in Gynecologic Oncology at Duke University. Dr. Moss has authored or co-authored several peer-reviewed articles that have been published in journals such as JAMA Oncology, Gynecologic Oncology, The Green Journal and American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. As Director of BGSOE, Dr. Moss leads initiatives to enhance the quality of cancer care for veterans affected by breast and gynecologic malignancies. Her work spans both operational improvements within local facilities and strategic efforts at the national level, with a strong commitment to advancing research in cancer care for veterans with reproductive cancers.

Rebecca Previs, MD MS is a board-certified gynecologic oncologist and the Senior Medical Director at Labcorp Oncology, where she leads the medical affairs team and strategic oncology initiatives to advance precision medicine and improve cancer diagnostics and care delivery. She also serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Gynecologic Oncology at Duke University Medical Center. Prior to joining Labcorp, Dr. Previs was an Assistant Professor and principal investigator at Duke, where she led early phase clinical trials translational research focused on biomarkers and the immune microenvironment in gynecologic cancers. Her work has been supported by grant funding from the NIH, Duke WRHR K12 Program, AAGOF-GOG Foundation, and Emerson Collective. She has mentored numerous trainees and served on national advisory committees, including NRG Oncology.

Dr. Previs completed her fellowship in gynecologic oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center and holds a Master of Science in Cancer Biology. Prior to that, she completed her residency in Obstetrics & Gynecologic at Duke University Medical Center. Her career reflects a deep commitment to advancing women’s health through research, education, and clinical innovation.

Jennifer Wu, MD MPH is originally from Frederick, MD. She earned her B.A. in Biology from Harvard College and her M.D. from the University of California at San Francisco. She trained in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA and then completed a fellowship in Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Concurrently, she received her Masters in Public Health in Epidemiology at the UNC School of Public Health. From 2007-2012, Dr. Wu served on the faculty at Duke University.

Dr. Wu re-joined the Division of Urogynecology and Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery at UNC Chapel Hill in 2013, and was appointed Division Director in 2018. In addition to her clinical/surgical practice, she is actively engaged in clinical trials and epidemiologic research of pelvic floor disorders, and she is dedicated to training future subspecialists in Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery.  She is currently the Immediate Past President of the American Urogynecologic Society.

Abbreviations:

• BIRCWH           Building Interdisciplinary Research Career in Women’s Health – NIH K12 program
• WRHR              Women’s Reproductive Health Research – NIH K12 program
• KURe               K12 Urologic Research Career Development Program – NIH K12 program

Mohammad Ahmed, PhD – BIRCWH Advisory Committee -Dean, College of Health and Sciences, NC Central University; Associate Director of Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL)

            Dr. Ahmed earned a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Houston. During his graduate work, Ahmed performed research at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in nuclear physics. Subsequently, Ahmed joined the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL) on the campus of Duke University as a research scientist and continued as an assistant research professor of physics at Duke University until his arrival at NCCU in 2011. Dr. Ahmed co-chairs the Task Force on Research at NCCU and is also a co-author of the NCCU General Education Curriculum Revision Task Force Report. In addition, he has served on the faculty senate and is a member of the University Athletics Council. He also serves as the Associate Director of Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL), a consortium of Duke University, NCCU, NC State University and UNC Chapel Hill for experimental nuclear physics. Dr. Ahmed is also a fellow of Center for Advancement of STEM Leadership, a National Science Foundation funded project to bring leadership on HBCU campuses. 

Audrey Blewer, PhD, MPH – BIRCWH Alumna - Associate Professor in Family Medicine and Community Health, Duke University

             Dr. Blewer's interests lie at the intersection of resuscitation science, epidemiology, health disparities, and implementation science. Her methodological interests include handling missing data in observational and clinical trials and implementation of pragmatic clinical trials. She has examined how cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training dissemination strategies can be expanded, and tailored to target geographic, racial, and socioeconomic disparities in layperson CPR education and bystander CPR delivery. A recent publication used national data to assess variation in receipt of bystander CPR by neighborhood-level ethnicity. Dr. Blewer is also collaborating with partners in Singapore to improve prehospital emergency care and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Southeast Asia. In her current work, Dr. Blewer is examining dispatch-assisted CPR, bystander CPR and defibrillation, and assessing gender disparities in cardiac arrest.

Ben Chi, MD, MSC - PI of the UNC-WRHR K12 career development program - Annie Louise Wilkerson MD ’36 Distinguished Professor; Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Associate Director, Global Health Core

            Dr. Chi also holds an appointment in the Department of Epidemiology at the UNC, Chapel Hill. He lived in Lusaka, Zambia for over a decade (2003-2015), where he led a research portfolio focused on the prevention of mother-to-child transmission, HIV care and treatment, and maternal and child health. He has served on guideline committees for the World Health Organization and as a consultant to UNICEF, working to translate research to policy. Since returning to Chapel Hill in 2015, his activities in Zambia have expanded to other neighboring countries, including Malawi, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In addition, Dr. Chi leads several research training programs designed to foster U.S. collaborations abroad, including the UNC Global Women’s Health Fellowship and the UJMT Fogarty Global Health Fellows Consortium. He is an active mentor to numerous faculty and fellows—from the U.S. and abroad—with dedicated NIH support to these efforts. Areas of Interest: HIV; Maternal child health; Women's health; Global health; Implementation science; Clinical trials

Cathleen Colon-Emeric, MD – BIRCWH Advisory Committee - James B. Wyngaarden Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Chief, Division of Geriatrics, Duke University; Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development

            Dr. Colon-Emeric’s current research focuses on the epidemiology, prediction, and prevention of osteoporotic fractures in elderly persons, and in improving the quality of care delivered to residents in skilled nursing facilities. Her ongoing projects include a large, administrative database study of osteoporosis screening in men, a randomized trial of different staff education strategies to improve fall prevention in nursing homes, and several clinical demonstration projects.

Gaurav Dave, MBBS, PhD, MPH – MPI of the UNC BIRCWH K12 career development program - Professor of Medicine, Division of Internal Medicine, UNC-Chapel Hill; Director of the Center for Thriving Communities; Director of Abacus Evaluation

            Dr. Dave’s areas of interest are clinical and public health research, rural healthcare, chronic disease management, community engagement, implementation science, program evaluation. Dr. Dave’s research focuses on: (1) improving chronic disease prevention and management via health information technology interventions and (2) evaluating multi-level, multi-component, complex programs. He partners with various multi-sectoral organizations (e.g., housing, transportation, safety-net clinics, healthcare) to plan and implement interventions that improve chronic disease outcomes, particularly in rural areas

Jeffrey Federspiel MD, PhD – Panel speaker, WRHR Scholar  - Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Duke University

            Dr. Federspiel has secondary appointments in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Population Health Sciences. He is a maternal fetal medicine physician. His clinical and research interests focus on the care of people with cardiovascular and hematologic complications of pregnancy.

Liping Feng, MD, MS – WRHR program mentor - Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Duke University

            Dr. Feng's research has focused on understanding the mechanisms of pregnancy complications associated with placental development. These works are translated then to the clinical care of women through studies dedicated to identifying risk factors and novel biomarkers for early prediction and prevention of adverse birth outcomes. Dr. Feng devotes her entire career to improving pregnancy outcomes through innovative research. Dr. Feng conducts both basic science/laboratory research, as well as participates in clinical studies. Her laboratory has focused on understanding the mechanisms of placenta-originated pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia and still birth, which are important causes of perinatal and neonates’ mortality and morbidity. Currently, she has three lines of investigation focused on the roles of inflammation/infection, cell aging, and environmental exposure in placental development and subsequent pregnancy complications. In addition, Dr. Feng has established an international collaboration in Global Women’s Health. She has affiliated with the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI) and has an interest in DGHI education, and service or policy initiatives, including mentoring and teaching graduate and professional students on fieldwork and research.

Jennifer M. Gierisch, PhD, MPH – BIRCWH Advisory Committee - Associate Professor in Population Health Sciences and Medicine, Duke University; Director of the VA OAA Health Services Research Postdoctoral Fellowship; Co-Director of the Evidence Synthesis Program (VA ESP) at the Durham Veteran Affairs Health Care System

            Dr. Gierisch is a behavioral scientist and health services researcher with expertise in qualitative research. Her research focuses on three overarching areas: 1) behavioral research on the psychosocial factors that influence appropriate uptake and maintenance of complex health behaviors (e.g., weight management, smoking cessation, cancer screening); 2) evidence synthesis on key health and healthcare topics to enhance uptake of evidence-based interventions to improve patient and health system outcomes; and 3) participatory and community engaged research approaches. She also served as a faculty director of the Duke Clinical Translational Science Institute's  Community Engaged Research Initiative (CeRi) for five years.

Karen M. Goldstein, MD, MSPH – Senior faculty - Associate Professor of Medicine, Duke University; Co-Director Durham VA Quality Scholars Program; Co-Director Evidence-based Synthesis Program, Durham VA

            Dr. Goldstein is a general internist with a clinical background in women's health and primary care HIV. Her research interests include cardiovascular risk reduction in women, gender disparities in the veteran population, the use of peer support to promote behavior change, and evidence synthesis methodology.

Katelyn (Katie) M. Holliday, PhD, MPH – Panel moderator; BIRCWH alumna - Assistant Professor in Family Medicine and Community Health, Duke University

            Dr. Holliday’s research interests encompass understanding how natural/built environments and social factors interact to influence health and health behaviors, with a focus on the role of geospatial factors and health disparities in these relationships. In particular, she is concerned with primordial prevention and the ways in which the natural, built, and social environments can be shaped to positively influence health and health behavior. She has applied these research interests in studying a variety of health outcomes including physical activity, cardiovascular disease, and deaths of despair.

Chuan Hong, PhD – Panel speaker - Assistant Professor of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics, Duke University

            Dr. Hong’s area of excellence is data science with a unique combination of expertise in both biostatistics and biomedical informatics. Her primary research interests have been focused on developing statistical and machine learning methods with an emphasis on artificial intelligence in healthcare systems, predictive modeling, high throughput phenotyping and precision medicine using large scale biomedical data. She has extensive expertise in data harmonization based on representation learning, information retrieval, language model and fairness-aware predictive modeling. Her research includes learning with complex and imperfect outcomes from HER, as well as efficient and robust federated learning and transfer learning methods.

Shelley Hwang, MD, MPH – BIRCWH program mentor - Mary and Deryl Hart Distinguished Professor of Surgery, Professor of Radiology in the School of Medicine, Duke University; Vice-Chair of Research in the Department of Surgery; Core Faculty Member, Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy

            Dr. Hwang is a breast cancer surgeon and translational researcher who has been at Duke since 2011. A world-renowned surgeon-scientist and leader in the field of breast surgical oncology. Working at the center of multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary projects on the disease, her laboratory studies the genetics, microenvironment, and evolution of early breast cancer. Hwang currently is focused on formulating a translational framework in which to test the efficacy of non-surgical interventions for ductal carcinoma in situ of the breast. She is leading a global reassessment of what defines breast cancer and is revolutionizing the approach to this disease, highlighting non-surgical approaches. Hwang is the first woman to hold a distinguished chair in the Duke Department of Surgery. Under her leadership and mentorship, the breast surgery group at Duke has been remarkably successful. Hwang’s work to study and mitigate the harms of overdiagnosis and overtreatment of early-stage breast cancer led to her being recognizing as one of the Top 100 most influential people by Time magazine in 2016.

Kirti Magudia, MD, PhD – Panel speaker - Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiology, Duke University School of Medicine

            She completed her fellowship in abdominal imaging and ultrasound at the University of California, San Francisco and her Diagnostic Radiology Residency at Brigham & Women's Hospital. Her research centers on high-level applications of machine learning in radiology, including CT-based body composition analysis and prostate MR, which was facilitated by 7 dedicated months at the MGH/BWH Center for Clinical Data Science and a yearlong T32 research fellowship in the Biomedical Imaging for Clinical Scientists Program at UCSF. She was the founding resident chair of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Women in the Radiology Program and has extensively advocated for family-friendly trainee policies. Dr. Magudia is a graduate of the Tri-institutional MD/PhD program of Weill Cornell, Sloan-Kettering, and Rockefeller University, where she completed her Ph.D. in cell and cancer biology in the laboratory of Alan Hall developing a novel 3D cell culture model of colon tumorigenesis.

Margeaux W Marbrey, PhD – WRHR program mentor - Assistant Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Duke University

            The Marbrey laboratory seeks to understand molecular regulators of early and mid-pregnancy success using exposure paradigms and cutting-edge models to further understand human reproduction, promote healthy pregnancies, and improve patient care. The Marbrey laboratory builds upon Dr. Marbrey's includes how tobacco products and other common exposures can impact: Future reproductive fitness of pre-pubertal individuals, pregnancy health and fertility outcomes, health of the in utero exposed fetus, and reproductive-associated disease states.

Roland Matsouaka, PhD – Senior faculty - Associate Professor of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics, Duke University; Associate Chair for Culture, Engagement, and Impact in the Department of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics; Member of the Duke Clinical Research Institute

            Dr. Matsouaka’s methodological research focuses on nonparametric, semiparametric, and causal inference methods for comparative effectiveness studies, clinical trials affected by non-compliance, not-so-perfect experiments, and observational studies. His goal is to develop statistical methods that make the best use of the data collected to answer scientific questions while applying principled methods to minimize bias and ensure fair assessments. The substantive areas of application of his research include public health, biomedical, and social sciences.  

Michelle L. Meyer, PhD, MPH – MPI of the UNC BIRCWH K12 career development program - Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Research in Emergency Medicine; adjunct Associate Professor in Epidemiology, UNC-Chapel Hill

            Dr. Meyer’s areas of interest are cardiovascular epidemiology and women's health. As a cardiovascular epidemiologist with expertise in cardiometabolic risk factors and non-invasive measures of vascular disease, one area of Dr. Meyer’s research is dedicated to understanding early impairments in vascular structure and function and their role in end-organ damage to the heart and brain. Her research aims to identify at-risk individuals and to inform targeted cardiovascular disease prevention and management strategies. She is co-PI of the mother and Infant Determinants of vascular Aging Study (MIDAS) to estimate cardiovascular disease risk in 840 healthy and medically complicated pregnant individuals and their infants from birth to 12 months postpartum. Additionally, she is involved in large, population-based studies including the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL), the Jackson Heart Study (JHS), and the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study. Her second line of research involves educational interventions for pain management and understanding how complementing prescribing policies with patient education on pain management can improve pain recovery and reduce progression to long-term opioid use. She is the PI of two large randomized clinical trials testing a video and telecare intervention on pain management in emergency department and urgent care populations with acute musculoskeletal pain.

Haley Moss, MD, MBA – Panel speaker, BIRCWH alumna - Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Gynecologic Oncology, Duke University; Faculty at the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC); Director of the Breast and Gynecologic Oncology System of Excellence (BGSOE) through the National Oncology Program at VAMC

            As a gynecologic oncologist with a Master's in Business Administration, Dr. Moss’s lens as a researcher has focused on the interface of women’s health and policies to improve the value of cancer care. Her research interest in health services has focused on alternative payment models and the impact of the Affordable Care Act on access to oncologic services. She has collaborated on multiple NCDB and SEER-Medicare projects to better understand the impact of how policies impact the care of patients with a gynecologic malignancy. A second field of interest is the cost of care and using health economic models to help guide health care decisions, such as ovarian cancer screening. As Director of BGSOE, Dr. Moss leads initiatives to enhance the quality of cancer care for veterans affected by breast and gynecologic malignancies. Her work spans both operational improvements within local facilities and strategic efforts at the national level, with a strong commitment to advancing research in cancer care for veterans with reproductive cancers.
 

Evan Myers, MD, MPH – BIRCWH and WRHR program leadership and mentor - Walter L. Thomas Distinguished Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Women's Community & Population Health in the School of Medicine, Duke University; Vice Chair for Reproductive Risks, Duke IRB

            Dr. Myers’ research interests are broadly in the application of quantitative methods, especially mathematical modeling and decision analysis, to problems in women's health. Recent and current activities include integration of simulation modeling and systematic reviews to inform decisions surrounding cervical, ovarian, and breast cancer prevention and control, screening for postpartum depression, and management of uterine fibroids. He is also engaged in exploring methods for integrating guidelines development and research prioritization. In addition, he has ongoing collaborations using the tools of decision analysis with faculty in other clinical areas. He is the course director for “Decision Sciences in Clinical Research", in Duke's Clinical Research Training Program. As Vice Chair for Reproductive Risks for the Duke IRB, he is interested in developing evidence-based procedures and policies to encourage safe enrollment of women, including pregnant women, into clinical trials

Truls Ostbye, MD, MPH – BIRCWH program mentor - Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health and Population Health Sciences, Duke University; Vice Chair for research, Family Medicine and Community Health

            Dr. Ostbye is a physician-epidemiologist whose research spans chronic disease epidemiology, population health, and global public health. His work has focused on obesity, nutrition, aging, and dementia, with a strong emphasis on health services research and social medicine. He has extensive experience in clinical trials, program evaluation, and the use of health information systems and population-based surveys to inform policy and improve health outcomes across diverse populations.

Rebecca A Previs, MD MS – Panel speaker, WRHR alumna - Senior Medical Director of Medical Affairs, Labcorp Oncology; Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Duke University

            Dr. Previs is a board-certified gynecologic oncologist and the Senior Medical Director at Labcorp Oncology, where she leads the medical affairs team and strategic oncology initiatives to advance precision medicine and improve cancer diagnostics and care delivery. Prior to joining Labcorp, Dr. Previs was an Assistant Professor and principal investigator at Duke, where she led early phase clinical trials translational research focused on biomarkers and the immune microenvironment in gynecologic cancers. Her work has been supported by grant funding from the NIH, Duke WRHR K12 Program, AAGOF-GOG Foundation, and Emerson Collective. She has mentored numerous trainees and served on national advisory committees, including NRG Oncology.

Lisa Rahangdale, MD, MPH – MPI of the UNC BIRCWH K12 career development program - Professor, General Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Midwifery; Associate Dean for Admissions; UNC-Chapel Hill

            Dr. Rahangdale’s work includes seeing patients as a general OBGYN, directing the cervical dysplasia clinic, and caring for women living with HIV. Her research interests lie in understanding how infectious diseases affect the reproductive health of women and how to optimize primary and secondary prevention measures. She especially focuses on reproductive infectious disease such as HPV and cervical cancer prevention, and HIV in women.

Whitney R Robinson, PhD – WRHR program mentor - Associate Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Women's Community & Population Health, Duke University

            Dr. Robinson designs studies and interprets results from big datasets to figure out why rates of health and disease vary across groups. She thinks about new ways to draw causal inference from observational data. Non-cancerous gynecologic conditions, like endometriosis, fibroids, and PCOS, are Dr. Robinson’s focus. They affect the well-being of a huge number of people but can be difficult to diagnose and treat. Treatment often involves complex trade-offs regarding quality of life, fertility, and permanence of treatment effectiveness. She typically investigates these questions using health care data that were not originally intended for research, such as electronic health records, state physician licensing data, etc.

Angeles Alvarez Secord, MD – WRHR Advisory Committee -Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Gynecologic Oncology Duke University;

            Dr. Secord’s primary research interest has focused on on novel therapeutics, biomarkers and clinical trial development for ovarian and endometrial cancer. Her fundamental goal is to develop a strong translational research program at Duke University in the Gynecologic Oncology Division, where knowledge from basic science research can be incorporated into our clinical trial program. Her focus is to determine if a strategy that incorporates both clinical and genomic information can improve clinical outcome, minimize unnecessary toxicity, and impact positively on quality of life. In addition, she is interested in robotic-assisted laparoscopic surgery for women with endometrial, ovarian and cervical cancers, as well as for benign gynecologic conditions.

Nazema Y. Siddiqui, MD MHSCR – WRHR program mentor

Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Urogynecology, Duke University

            Dr. Siddiqui is a clinician-scientist in the field of Urogynecology & Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery. She leads the Duke Urogenital Microbiome (Ur-BIOME) Research Program and has particular interest in how microbial factors influence recurrent UTIs and overactive bladder. She also serves as the Duke site PI for the Pelvic Floor Disorders Network, which is an NIH-sponsored group of investigators conducting clinical trials to improve the lives of women with pelvic floor issues.

Nina Smith, PhD – NCCU site PI of the Duke BIRCWH K12 career development program - Associate Dean, College of Health and Sciences, NC Central University

            Dr. Smith's training and specific research interests center around the impact of economic conditions such as poverty, parental job loss, and parental work characteristics on the well-being of children and families. Dr. Smith is also interested in how childcare experiences are linked to children's academic readiness and later school success.

Moria Smoski, PhD, MA, BA – BIRCWH alumna - Associate Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University;

            Dr. Smoski’s research interests are focused on emotion regulation and reward processes in psychopathology, primarily in major depressive disorder. She is interested in the translation of knowledge gleaned from cognitive neuroscience methods including functional neuroimaging to better understand and improve psychosocial interventions, including cognitive behavioral and mindfulness interventions.

Kai Sun, MD – KL2 alumna, BIRCWH scholar mentor - Associate Professor of Medicine, Rheumatology and Immunology, Duke University

            Dr. Sun’s clinical interests are in general rheumatology, inflammatory arthritis, lupus, and musculoskeletal ultrasound. Her research interest is in healthcare disparities and medication adherence in rheumatology.

Darlene K. Taylor, PhD – BIRCWH alumna; BIRCWH Advisory Committee - Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry, NC Central University; Adjunct Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Duke University

            Dr. Taylor is trained as a chemist with basic science, biomedical materials and translational medicine research interests, giving her a collaborative and multidisciplinary background. She is investigating the efficacy of various materials for potential applications in technologies that range from solar cells to drug delivery vehicles. The Taylor laboratory focuses on the design, synthesis and characterization of stimuli-responsive oligomers and polymers for potential applications in solar cell, drug delivery and membrane technologies.

Raphael H. Valdivia, PhD – BIRCWH Advisory Committee - Nanaline H. Duke Distinguished Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology and Professor of Cell Biology; Chair, Department of Immunology, Integrative Immunobiology, Duke University

            Dr. Valdivia’s laboratory is interested in microbes that influence human health, both in the context of host-pathogen and host-commensal interactions. For many pathogens, and certainly for most commensal microbes, we have an incomplete molecular understanding of how host and microbial factors contribute to health and disease. His research group focuses on two experimental systems, 1) Chlamydia trachomatis, to understand how these obligate intracellular bacterial pathogens manipulate host cellular functions to replicate, disseminate and cause disease, and in the process develop strategies to ameliorate the damage caused by these infections to the female reproductive organs. 2) Akkermansia muciniphila’s impact on immune homeostasis.

Courtney H. Van Houtven, PhD – Panel speaker - Professor in Population Health Sciences (DPHS)and Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy, Duke University. Director, Center to Advance the Science of Complex Care: Aging, Disability and Equity at DPHS.

            Dr. Van Houtven’s aging and economics research interests encompass long-term care financing, intra-household decision-making, unpaid family and friend care, and home- and community-based services. She examines how family caregiving affects health care utilization, expenditures, health and work outcomes of care recipients and caregivers. She examines how family caregiving affects health care utilization, expenditures, health, and work outcomes of care recipients and caregivers. She also strives to build evidence around which policies and strategies effectively support family caregivers in their role. She leads a mixed methods R01 study as PI from the National Institute on Aging that will assess the value of "home time" for persons living with dementia and their caregivers (RF1 AG072364). She also directs CASCADE: Center for Advancing the Science of Complex Care: Aging, Disability, and Equity, a grant-funded center within DPHS.

Philip J. Walther MD, PhD, MBA, FACS – KURe Advisory Committee - Professor of Surgery/Urology; Associate Professor of Experimental Pathology, Duke University

            His lab research interests have been: 1) Developmental GU onco-therapeutics using human xenograft-supported GU tumors (primarily bladder) 2) the genomic elucidation of the role of oncogenic HPV genotypes with lower GU cancers (bladder, penis, and urethra); and androgen-dependent human prostate cancer.

Kevin P. Williams, PhD, – BIRCWH program mentor - Merck Professor in Integrated Biosciences, Biomanufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprise (BRITE), NC Central University;  Duke University

            Dr. Williams is a member of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at UNC and an associate member of the Duke Cancer Institute. Prior to joining NCCU, Dr. Williams spent 15 years in the biopharmaceutical industry, and he has continued to have a strong interest in workforce development. His laboratory investigates pathway dysregulation in cancer, and pharmacologic profiling of cancer cells. The laboratory of Dr. Williams is also interested in developing new therapeutics targeting the Hedgehog pathway, and studying genes that confer susceptibility to alcohol-induced birth defects, with a focus on the Hedgehog pathway.

Jennifer Wu, MD, MPH – Panel speaker, BIRCWH alumna - Professor, Urogynecology; Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, UNC School of Medicine Chapel Hill

            Dr. Wu cares for women suffering from pelvic floor disorders. In addition to her clinical/surgical practice, she is actively engaged in clinical trials and epidemiologic research and training future subspecialists in Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery. As the Vice Dean for Academic Affairs for UNC School of Medicine (SOM), she oversees the SOM’s educational enterprise and office of faculty affairs and leadership development.

Jennifer Y. Zhang, PhD – BIRCWH scholar mentor - Professor in Dermatology, Professor in Pathology, Duke University

            Dr. Zhang leads a research program focused on skin biology and disease, examining how epidermal cells regulate growth, differentiation, and immune responses. Her lab studies gene regulatory pathways and ubiquitination enzymes that influence skin inflammation, regeneration, and cancer, including melanoma. Using human skin models and genetic systems, her work aims to improve treatments for inflammatory skin diseases, graft-versus-host disease, and skin cancers by identifying novel molecular targets.

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