About the Editors

Editor-in-Chief

 

Melissa M Medvedev, MD, PhD
University of California San Francisco
UCSF Institute for Global Health Sciences
USA

 

Melissa Medvedev is an Associate Professor of Neonatology and a Faculty Affiliate in the Institute for Global Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research focuses on the evaluation of interventions to improve health outcomes among vulnerable women, infants, and children. Melissa has led or co-led over a dozen clinical trials and studies, consulted for and advised health tech companies (digital health, machine learning, devices), and serves on the WHO Every Newborn Measurement Improvement Working Group and the UNICEF/Newborn Essential Solutions and Technologies Target Product Profiles Advisory Group. She previously served as an Associate Editor of npj Digital Medicine, where she focused on digital health and artificial intelligence technologies and led a Collection on Women’s Health and Maternal Care. Melissa received her MD from the University of Texas, Houston and completed clinical training in Pediatrics and Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at UCSF. She obtained her PhD in Epidemiology and Medical Statistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where she was awarded the Woodruff Medal, and completed postdoctoral fellowships in Preterm Birth at UCSF and Biodesign Innovation at Stanford University. 

 

Associate Editors

Huiqi Yvonne Lu, PhD
Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford; Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Oxford, UK

Dr Lu obtained her DPhil in mobile computing and biometrics pattern recognition at the University of Sussex. She then worked on breast cancer research and diabetic retinopathy. Dr Lu joined the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford with a Royal Academy of Engineering Daphne Jackson Research Fellowship. She is an independent investigator focused on AI and digital medicine in women’s health, especially on wearable devices and patient monitoring. Dr Lu is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and holds workshop committee positions at ICLR, NeurIPs ML4H, and PHME.

Maral Mousavi, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Southern California
California, US

Maral’s research experiences and interests span from point-of-care diagnostics, to electrochemical sensors, wearable devices, neural probes, and tools for precision medicine. I am particularly interested in soft wearable sensors that improve health outcomes for women. My group develops a range of electrochemical sensors with focus on addressing health disparities and improving access to care, and diagnosis.

Sarah Perret
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School

Sarah Perret MS is a researcher interested in women’s health, psychiatry, and the incorporation of technology in medicine. She completed her master's degree at Boston University with field work at Harvard Medical School and the Division of Digital Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Her research focuses on 1) perinatal digital mental health and the applied use of digital phenotyping for improving maternal outcomes and 2) digital literacy and equity around access to and skills for utilizing technology in care settings.

Nicole Hashemi, PhD
Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA

Dr. Nicole Hashemi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State University. She is interested in developing microdevices that improve women's health, enhance clinical diagnosis, and expand healthcare access. Nicole has led a multi-institutional team of researchers working to develop a “placenta-on-a-chip” model to test how medicines, nutrients, and other substances are passed from mother to fetus and vice versa. She is the recipient of the 2023 NSF Mid-CAREER Advancement Award for her placenta-on-a-chip project. Nicole is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Gelila Goba, MPH
University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Medcine, Chicago, IL

Her research focuses on using clinical, epidemiologic, and transdisciplinary research to address health disparities and preventable morbidity and mortality women’s health in the US and globally. She is a PI of a multi-disciplinary cervical cancer/HPV team exploring the influence of structural violence, neighborhood stress on progression of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) associated precancer disease. This study was instrumental to set up large database of 13,466 women over period of 2014-2019 and uncover differential burden on Black Chicagoan women with persistent high risk HPV infection. She has led the design and implementation of large multicounty clinical study in Ethiopia and Uganda enrolling 3,800 to assess feasibility, system readiness and identify level of care to improve performance and standard of care. Dr. Goba previously served on the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ (ACOG) Global Operations Advisory Board as well as the Committee for Underserved Women. She currently serves on the Federation International of Gynecologists and Obstetricians (FIGO) Well-Woman Committee.
 

Advisory Editor

Riikka Jokinen, PhD
University of Helsinki

Riikka joined Nature Communications in December 2018, and handles manuscripts in the fields of metabolism, endocrinology and gastroenterology, focusing on clinical and translational studies. She received her doctoral degree from the University of Helsinki, where she studied tissue-specific regulation of mitochondrial DNA. She then joined the Obesity Research Unit at the University of Helsinki and worked on disease mechanisms and treatment targets for obesity and related metabolic diseases.

 

Editorial Board Members

Prabha S Chandra, MD
Professor of Psychiatry and Dean, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences
Bangalore, INDIA

Linda C. Giudice, MD, PhD
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, CA, USA

Jane Elizabeth Hirst, MBBS, MPH, PhD, FANZCOG
The George Institute for Global Health, Imperial College London

Peter Waiswa, PhD
Makerere University School of Public Health, Kampala, Uganda

Janice Du Mont, EdD
Women's College Research Institute, Women's College Hospital
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Mahla Poudineh, PhD
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, ON, Canada

Arvin Arani, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN, USA

Demilade Adedinsewo, MD
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL, USA

Michelle Khine, PhD
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, California

Adeniyi Olagunju, PhD
University of Liverpool
Liverpool, UK

Susanna Chiocca, PhD
European Institute of Oncology, IEO
Milano, Italy

Hamideh Bayrampour, PhD
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada

Tommaso Simoncini, PhD
University of Pisa
Italy

Sudhin Thayyil, PhD
Imperial College London
London, UK

Xiaotao Shen,PhD 
Stanford University,
Palo Alto, CA, USA

Giuseppe Gullo,MD,PhD 
A.O.O.R. Villa Sofia Cervello, University of Palermo,
Palermo,Sicily,Italy

Noemi Salmeri,MD 
Department of OBGYN, IRCCS San Raffaele Institute,
Milan, MI,Italy

Gang Qin,MD, 
Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University,
Nantong, JS, China

Miguel de Sousa Mendes,MD 
DRK Kliniken Berlin Westend,Médecins Sans Frontières,
Berlin, Germany

Pallavi Dubey, PhD
Research Instructor
El Paso, Texas, USA

Chong Chen, PhD
Yamaguchi University
Ube, Yamaguchi, Japan

Kathryn Clancy, PhD
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Urbana, IL 61801

Karla Hutt, PhD
Monash University
Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Marianna Alperin, MD
University of California, San Diego
San Diego, CA, USA

Elizabeth Oliver, PhD
Zurich, Switzerland

Judith Regensteiner, PhD
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Aurora, Colorado

Debora Kamin Mukaz, PhD
Larner College of Medicine at The University of Vermont
Burlington, VT, USA

Yong Wang, PhD
Washington University in St Louis
St. Louis, MO, USA

Adama Sesay,PhD
Wyss Institue for Biologically Inspired Engineering
Boston, MA USA

Soraya Mezouar,PhD
Aix-Marseille University, ADES Unit
France

 

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