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Executive Committee

SPER’s Executive Committee is comprised of eight officers and includes a President, a President-Elect, an Immediate Past-President, a Secretary, a Treasurer, and four Members-at-Large, a Trainee Representative, and an International Representative. The President of the Society shall be the Chairperson of the Executive Committee. All officers of the Society must be members and are elected by majority vote of the members voting by mail or e-mail ballot.

 

Jaime Slaughter-Acey

Past President

I am a perinatal epidemiologist by training, receiving my doctorate in Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Epidemiology from the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health in 2010. I have been an active member of SPER since 2011. I completed a NIH T32 postdoctoral fellowship in perinatal epidemiology at Michigan State University (2011-2013). Currently, I am an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Community Health at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (https://directory.sph.umn.edu/bio/sph-a-z/jaime-slaughter-acey). Read more

  • PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2010
  • MPH, Tulane University, 2002
  • BS, Texas A&M University, 2000

CONTACT

jslaught@umn.edu

Office Phone 612-625-8357

Office Address:
West Bank Office Building, Suite 300

Mailing Address:
1300 South Second Street, Suite 300
Minneapolis, MN 55454

*insert personal info here*

 

Penelope (Penny) Howards

President

Penelope (Penny) Howards is an Associate Professor in the Epidemiology Department at Emory University. She describes herself as a reproductive epidemiologist with methodological interests. Most recently, her research has focused on the reproductive health of birthing people with chronic conditions including cancer survivors, people with lupus, and people with sickle cell disease. She is also passionate about teaching epidemiologic concepts and mentoring trainees to help them achieve their individual goals. Read more

  • PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2004
  • MS, (Geography), Pennsylvania State University, 1994
  • AB, Dartmouth College, 1990

CONTACT
1518 Clifton RD NE, CNR 3029
Emory Universit
Atlanta, GA 30322
Phone: 404.727.8499
Email: penelope.howards@emory.edu

Edwina Yeung

President – Elect

Edwina Yeung is a Senior Investigator in the Epidemiology Branch of the Division of Population Health Research in the Division of Intramural Research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. She is a perinatal and pediatric epidemiologist. Her primary research interests are in the developmental origins of health and disease. She is also exploring the possible mechanisms underlying these associations, including epigenetics. She has served as principal investigator of a longitudinal cohort which recruited newborns from New York State and followed them into middle childhood. She has been an active member of SPER since 2009.

  • PhD, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2008

  • ScM, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2005

  • BA, Johns Hopkins University, 2003

CONTACT

Address: 6710B Rockledge Dr, MSC 7004
Bethesda, MD 20817
tel: 301-435-6921
Email: edwina.yeung@nih.gov

Helen Chin

Secretary

Helen Chin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Global and Community Health. Her research interests are centered around investigating factors that adversely affect the reproductive health of women and girls, as well as their offspring. Her current focus is studying how endocrine disrupting exposures affect ovarian development and function. Read more

  • Doctor of Philosophy , Epidemiology, Emory University
  • Master of Public Health, Epidemiology, University of South Florida
  • Bachelor of Science, Biology, University of South Florida

CONTACT

Department of Global and Community Health
College of Public Health
George Mason University
4400 University Drive, MS 5B7
Fairfax, VA 22030
703-993-5388
hchin4@gmu.edu

Candice Johnson

Treasurer

Candice Johnson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at Duke University. She studies how work-related policies affect the health of workers and their families. Her research interests include employment during pregnancy, access to paid leave, and occupational health inequities.

 

  • PhD, Emory University, 2012
  • MSc, University of Ottawa, 2008

CONTACT

Duke Department of Family Medicine and Community Health
2200 W Main St, Suite 600
Durham, NC 27705
Email: candice.y.johnson@duke.edu

Stefanie Hinkle

Member at Large

Stephine Hinkle

Stefanie N. Hinkle is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics at the University of Pennsylvania. Stefanie is a nutritional and perinatal epidemiologist. Her research focuses on the nutritional status of women and birthing people with the goal of reducing the risk for adverse birth outcomes and advancing their long-term health.

  • PhD, Emory University 2012

  • BS, University of California at Santa Cruz 2006

CONTACT

Stefanie N. Hinkle, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics
Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
423 Guardian Drive
812 Blockley Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19140
Phone: (215) 746-4218
Email: Stefanie.Hinkle@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
(she/her)

 

Audrey Gaskins

Member at Large

Audrey Gaskins is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Emory Rollins School of Public Health. Her research focuses on understanding the influence of diet and environment on reproductive outcomes including age at menarche, menstrual cycle function, semen quality, fecundity, pregnancy loss, and fertility.

  • Bachelor of Science in Engineering 2008, Duke University.
  • Doctor of Science 2014, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

CONTACT

1518 Clifton Road, NE
Atlanta , GA 30322
1518-002-3BB (SPH: Epidemiology)
Phone: 404-727-5409
Fax: 404-727-8737
audrey.jane.gaskins@emory.edu

Kristen Rappazzo

Member at Large

EPA researcher Dr. Kristen Rappazzo works on projects investigating potential links between health outcomes—including birth defects, preterm birth, and mortality—and environmental exposures.

 

  • Ph.D, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2013
  • MPH, Drexel University School of Public Health, 2005
  • BA, University of Rochester, 2001

CONTACT

rappazzo.kristen@epa.gov

Stephanie Leonard

Member at Large

Stephanie Leonard is an Assistant Professor in the Dunlevie Maternal-Fetal Medicine Center at Stanford (https://dunleviemfm.stanford.edu/) and is Research Faculty with the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC; https://www.cmqcc.org/). The overall goal of her research is to advance equitable, positive health experiences and outcomes for pregnant individuals. Her current research focuses on hypertensive disorders during pregnancy.

  • PhD, University of California-Berkeley, 2017
  • MS, University of California-Los Angeles, 2014
  • BS, Cornell University, 2010

CONTACT

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Stanford University School of Medicine
453 Quarry Road | MC 5317
Stanford, California 94305
650-724-1824
stephanie.leonard@stanford.edu



Neda Razaz

International Representative

Neda Razaz is a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at Karolinska Institutet. Her team specialize in linking and analysing large datasets in Sweden and Canada to understand the role of maternal and paternal chronic illness during pregnancy, and medication use for mothers and babies, during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period, and beyond throughout the mother and child’s life course. Furthermore, they examine neonatal and treatment factors that influences the risk of neurodevelopmental and somatic outcomes in childhood and early adulthood.

  • University of British Columbia, PhD in Epidemiology, Dec 2015

  • University of British Columbia, Master of Public Health, Dec 2010

CONTACT

Karolinska Institutet
Maria Aspmans gata 30A, 17164
neda.razaz@ki.se
+46852482507


Sharonda Lovett

Trainee Representative

Sharonda Lovett is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health. Her current research focuses on the influence of stress across the life course and sustainable ways to advance health equity. Specifically, the study of environmental and early life determinants (e.g., adverse childhood experiences, family/community violence, discrimination, neighborhood change) on various reproductive health issues.

  • MPH, University of South Florida, 2020
  • BS, University of Florida, 2018

CONTACT

slovett1@bu.edu