Nima Aghaeepour is an Associate Professor at Stanford University. His laboratory develops machine learning and artificial intelligence methods to study clinical and biological modalities in translational settings. He is primarily interested in leveraging multiomics studies, wearable devices, and electronic health records to address global health challenges. His work is recognized by numerous national and international organizations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Alfred E. Mann Foundation, the March of Dimes Foundation, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the National Institute on Aging, and the National Institute of Child Health and Development.

Alina Brewer is the Site Director at Kalo Clinical Research where she is committed to promoting access, diverse representation, and safety in clinical trials within the local community of West Valley City, Utah. She oversees clinical trial and regulatory operations and is the main point of contact for Principal Investigators and study monitors. For nearly 10 years, she served as the Preeclampsia Foundation’s Registry Manager and was instrumental in the development and growth of the Preeclampsia Registry and facilitated the completion of numerous published studies and projects. Additionally, she held several positions over 15 years at Juneau Biosciences, a genetics laboratory, where her focus was project/research management and product development.

The Registry will always hold a special place in Alina’s heart. She is very proud of all that the Registry has accomplished so far, and strongly believes in its transformative impact through patient involvement across all aspects of research.

Andrew Combs is a Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM) specialist with Pediatrix Medical Group where he is the Senior Advisor for MFM Clinical Quality. In this role, he is involved in quality and safety improvement efforts for 31 MFM practices across the
United States. He was a founding partner in Obstetrix of California where he practiced MFM for 29 years. Working with the Patient Safety and Quality Committee of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, he has been involved in the development and dissemination of checklists, quality metrics, and other tools for the prevention, management, and follow-up of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.

Dr. Cornelius is Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Pharmacology and Toxicology at University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, MS, and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Emergency Medicine. She serves as Director of the ImmunoAssay Core in the Pharmacology Clinical Research Core and Director of the Graduate Program in Clinical Investigation with in the School of Graduate Studies in the Health Sciences. She has been continuously funded by federal, foundation, and industry grants and fellowships and has published extensively on the area of inflammation and immunology in the context of cardiovascular disease. She has served as Chair or co-chair of multiple American Heart Association grant peer review panels and is a standing member of the Environmental Determinants of Disease study section for the National Institutes of Health. Her research interest in hypertensive disorders of pregnancy span the translational research spectrum from T1-T3 and focus areas of therapeutics, underlying mechanisms, and epidemiology. Dr. Cornelius’s passion for the work of the Preeclampsia Foundation stems from her own personal experience with preeclampsia, having a close family member that has been impacted by preeclampsia during multiple pregnancies. It is her hope that through her professional career, advocacy, and volunteerism with the Preeclampsia Foundation we will collectively find the solution to the problem of preeclampsia and improve overall maternal health and the lives of women and their children worldwide.

Dr. Katherine Gray is an Associate Professor and Director of Research in the Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Washington, Seattle. She received her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her MD PhD at the University of Michigan. She completed Obstetrics & Gynecology residency at Emory University in Atlanta and a combined Maternal-Fetal Medicine (MFM)/ Clinical Genetics Fellowship at Brigham and Women’s and Boston Children’s Hospitals in Boston. Clinically, Dr. Gray works in high-risk obstetrics and reproductive genetics. Dr. Gray’s research program focuses on utilizing precision medicine approaches to understand maternal and fetal disorders in pregnancy, including delineating the genetics and associated molecular signatures of adverse pregnancy outcomes (i.e., preeclampsia, postpartum hemorrhage, stillbirth, and fetal anomalies) and advancing prenatal screening and diagnosis. She also leads the Washington Pregnancy Biorepository (WPR), an obstetric biobanking project at the University of Washington. A full list of Dr. Gray’s publications can be found here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/1L1o-kbia8jQN/bibliography/47162729/public/

Michael Honigberg, MD, MPP, FACC, is a cardiologist-investigator in the Cardiology Division at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He received his MD from Harvard Medical School, trained in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and completed clinical and research fellowship in cardiovascular medicine at MGH. Dr. Honigberg’s research program combines epidemiology, human genetics, multi-omics approaches, and imaging to understand emerging cardiovascular risk factors, e.g., sex-specific risk factors in women (e.g., preeclampsia), and their underlying mechanisms. Dr. Honigberg is the recipient of the Jeremiah Stamler Award from the Northwestern Cardiovascular Young Investigators’ Forum, the Douglas P. Zipes Distinguished Young Scientist Award from the American College of Cardiology, and the Young Physician-Scientist Award from the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He is excited to work with the Preeclampsia Foundation and Preeclampsia Registry to advance the prevention of the hypertensive disorders of pregnancy as well as the prevention of cardiovascular disease in affected women.  

Kelsey McLaughlin, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Toronto, and Staff Scientist in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Sinai Health System. Dr. McLaughlin’s clinical research program focuses on cardiovascular health in pregnancy, with the goal of advancing the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of hypertension in pregnancy to improve maternal and fetal health. She has experience in basic biomedical research, clinical research, and population health research. The work of the Preeclampsia Foundation is central to the patient experience at Sinai Health System, as all high-risk pregnant patients are directed to the health information, research, encouragement, and community provided by the Preeclampsia Foundation. 

Publications can be found here.

Dr. Terry K. Morgan, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Pathology, Obstetrics & Gynecology, and Biomedical Engineering at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU).  He has worked the past 30 years in the field of women’s health research, publishing over 150 peer-reviewed papers and a number of books about placental and gynecologic pathology. He has been an NIH-funded scientist since 2009 and he is the Associate Director for the Center for Developmental Health at OHSU.  In 2023 he won the prestigious Career Achievement Award in Placental Sciences from the International Federation of Placental Associations.  Dr. Morgan is the chair and founder of the Tree of Life Legacy Society and has served on the Preeclampsia Foundation Scientific Advisory Council since 2018.  His life’s work is understanding the early pathophysiology of uteroplacental insufficiency leading to preeclampsia.

Bio coming.

Robert Powers, PhD. is an Associate Professor is a faculty member in Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and member of the Magee-Womens Research Institute. Dr. Powers has been involved in research investigating underlying pathophysiology of preeclampsia and the biological mechanisms linking preeclampsia to future cardiovascular disease over the past 28 years, since he first moved to Pittsburgh and began working with Dr. James Roberts. Dr. Powers research has touched on topics within the pathophysiology of preeclampsia including: vascular dysfunction, inflammation, placental function, fetal growth, angiogenic factors, and environmental exposures such as cigarette smoke and stress. Dr. Powers has been recognized nationally and internationally for his research and leadership in preeclampsia and has numerous peer-reviewed publications. He has been a member of the scientific advisory board for the Preeclampsia Foundation and is a past President of the North American Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy.

Bio coming soon.

Ellen W. Seely is Director of Clinical Research, Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension Division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Her clinical research has focused on ways to ensure heart health in women after pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia or gestational diabetes using a participatory-based approach. She is committed to mentoring the next generation of clinical researchers and has received many mentoring awards. She is certified as an Expert in Hypertension by the American Society of Hypertension. Clinically, she sees patients with endocrine and hypertensive disorders preparing for pregnancy and during pregnancy. Dr. Seely received her MD from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons (NYC) and completed her training in internal medicine and endocrinology and metabolism at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Seely has been committed to working with the Preeclampsia Foundation which provides the patient voices so important to her work and the work of so many others. IN addition to serving on the Registry Advisory Board, she has been the spokesperson at several Preeclampsia Awareness walks.

Publications
Bijl RC, Bangert SE, Shree R, Brewer AN, Abrenica-Keffer N, Tsigas EZ, Koster MPH, Seely EW. Patient journey during and after a pre-eclampsia-complicated pregnancy: a cross-sectional patient registry study. BMJ Open. 2022 Mar 3;12(3):e057795. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-057795. PMID: 35241475; PMCID: PMC8896051.

Bio coming soon.

Kenneth Ward, MD is internationally known in the field of Medical Genetics and also a prominent high-risk pregnancy specialist. Dr. Ward is one of the only physicians in the United States who is Board-certified in four specialties including Obstetrics and Gynecology, Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Medical Genetics, and Molecular Genetics.

During his academic career, Dr. Ward founded and directed the University of Utah DNA Diagnostic Laboratory and the Molecular Genetics Laboratory at ARUP. Dr. Ward has over 35 years experience in DNA diagnostics and he has launched over a dozen “first-use-in-human” tests. He created the University of Utah’s training program in Clinical Molecular Genetics and he supervised the perinatal genetic counseling program. Dr. Ward led the efforts to map a number of human disease genes; his research has also focused on pregnancy-related complications including the genetics of preterm birth and preeclampsia. Dr. Ward also served as the Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Women’s Health at the University of Hawaii.

Most recently, Dr. Ward has founded, grown and operated a number of successful biotechnology companies. He has raised over $100 million in grant, angel, venture, and strategic financings. At Juneau Biosciences, Dr. Ward lead the development of novel predictive DNA-based tests for endometriosis. Dr. Ward also serves as Laboratory Director of the CAP and CLIA accredited high complexity molecular diagnostics lab at Slopes Bio, Inc.. Slopes Bio hosts the Preeclampsia Foundation Research Office.

Bio coming soon.

James M. Roberts, MD, is the previous co-chair of the Preeclampsia Registry, and served as Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Epidemiology and Clinical and Translational Research at the University of Pittsburgh. His research includes fundamental, clinical and health services approaches to the understanding and management of adverse pregnancy outcomes. He led a NIH RCT (10,000 women) of antioxidant vitamins to prevent preeclampsia. He was the recipient of lifetime achievement awards by the International Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy and the SGI and the 2008 Preeclampsia Foundation Hope Award for Lifetime Achievement. He has served or serves on the editorial boards of journals including, Placenta, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology, Metabolism and Hypertension. He has been on scientific review boards of the NIH, the CIHR, the FDA and the March of Dimes. He was the chair of the NICHD Maternal Fetal Medicine Network from 1990 –1999 and is past president of the Perinatal Research Society, the North American Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy, the Society of Gynecological Investigation and the International Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy. Roberts was formally admitted to fellowship ad eundem of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in September of 2000. He has been elected to membership in Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He has also received mentoring awards from the NICHD and the Society of Gynecological Investigation.