Henna Boolchandani, MD

Yale New Haven Hospital

Dr. Henna Boolchandani is a third-year pediatrics resident at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital. She received a B.S. in finance and international business from NYU and worked on Wall Street as an investment banking analyst before deciding to pursue a career change into medicine. She graduated from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY and is now completing a general pediatrics residency at Yale. Henna will be starting Pediatric Emergency Fellowship at Emory/Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta this summer.

During residency Henna partnered with her mentor, Dr. Melissa Langhan, to conceptualize and design a retrospective study examining the presence of gender and racial bias in pediatric fellowship letters of recommendation. To analyze 1,500+ letters of recommendation for 8 pediatric fellowships, she customized a natural language processing web-based application based off an open-source code repository. The research identified small, but significant, differences in linguistic choices based on applicant and letter writer gender. The next phase will explore if these biases impacted decisions to interview and rank candidates. The objective and motivation behind this study is to increase awareness of potential linguistic biases that may impact an individual’s training opportunities. Ultimately, she hopes to share a tool publicly to address these biases and counteract inequities that may exist within pediatric academic medicine.

Melissa Day, MD

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

Melissa E. Day, MD, is a third-year pediatrics resident at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. She received her undergraduate degree from Duke University and her medical degree from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. During medical school, she was a recipient of a research grant through the Doris Duke Clinical Research Mentorship, which funded research highlighting women’s health issues in sickle cell disease.

During her residency training, Melissa has continued to use research to advocate for disadvantaged populations. After observing the significant disparities and social determinants of health present in her primary care continuity clinic, she conceptualized and designed a cross-sectional study investigating the association between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in the caregivers of pediatric patients and pediatric influenza and COVID-19 vaccination uptake. She has found that caregivers with 4 or more ACEs are more likely to accept both influenza and COVID-19 vaccination for their children, highlighting the need for further studies assessing the role caregiver ACEs can have on vaccine decision-making. Melissa will continue her research efforts during her pediatric infectious diseases fellowship training at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center next year.

Lillian Juttukonda, MD, PhD

Boston Children’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center

Lillian Juttukonda, MD, PhD is a third-year resident in the Boston Combined Residency Program at Boston Children’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center. For her residency research project, she is investigating the placental immune response to COVID-19 under the supervision of Elizabeth Taglauer, MD, PhD and Elisha Wachman, MD, both neonatologists at Boston Medical Center.

Lillian’s research focuses on the maternal immune response in the placenta following maternal COVID-19. Her research compared paired placental, maternal blood, and infant blood samples at delivery from women who had COVID-19 during the second or third trimester of pregnancy to women who did not have COVID-19 or vaccination against COVID-19 during pregnancy. She found that when women had COVID-19 in the third trimester, their placentas had increased numbers of immune cells from the innate immune system (NK cells and macrophages) and adaptive immune system (T cells). In contrast, women who had COVID-19 in the second trimester had no changes in innate immune cell numbers in the placenta but did have increased T cells. When comparing the cytokine responses in the placenta, maternal blood, and cord blood, she found that cytokines in the blood were increased following COVID-19 but were not increased in the placenta. Overall, her research demonstrates that COVID-19 leads to a robust immune response in the placenta, which may impact fetal development and long-term outcomes for children born to women with COVID-19 during pregnancy. Current research endeavors are focused on understanding the impact of vaccination against COVID-19 during pregnancy on the immune response in the placenta.

Prior to pediatrics residency, Lillian completed her Bachelor in Music at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, where she majored in Violin Performance with a second major in Chemistry. Her undergraduate research focused on synthesis and characterization of liquid crystalline materials. She completed her MD and PhD in Microbiology and Immunology at Vanderbilt School of Medicine. Her PhD research under thesis mentor Eric Skaar, PhD, MPH focused on the battle between bacterial pathogens and the immune system for nutrient manganese and led to nine publications, including five as first author. She will be a fellow in the Harvard Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellowship beginning in July, 2022.

Highschool/College Awardees

Kathryn Farrell

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is the most common complication of prematurity. I was fortunate to work with the Dr. Sara DeMauro and the Chronic Lung Disease Program at CHOP to conduct a study evaluating the health-related quality of life and adaptive skills in children with BPD who were cared for by this program. The study was done through 45 minute phone interviews, which collected data on both the parent’s and child’s health-related quality of life, an overview on the child’s current medical and developmental status, the child’s adaptive skills/behaviors and the impact of COVID-19 on the family. Many studies have previously looked at younger children, around 2 years old or younger, but few studies have looked at BPD throughout childhood. This study evaluated a more inclusive group of children aged 0-12 years old.

During this experience, I spent most of my time doing data collection, data analyses, chart reviewing and recruiting families for the project. Many children with BPD suffer from respiratory complications, comorbidities and associated developmental delays throughout their development. Hearing the family’s perspective on their child’s health was particularly intriguing for me. I realized that there is little known about the parent’s health related to quality of life and how this relates to their perception of their child’s health and the child’s health resource utilization. I set out to investigate this by looking for associations between the parent’s overall descriptions of their child’s health, the actual severity of their children’s illness based on health service utilization and the parent’s self-reported health related quality of life. My results indicated that a positive parental view of their child’s health is a strong indicator of a higher quality of life, regardless of how medically complicated their child is. Knowledge of the factors that contribute to health related quality of life for parents with severe BPD will facilitate identification of families that may benefit from additional psychosocial support.

Celia Yu

The Lundquist Institute, University of California, San Diego

Celia Yu is a 3rd year undergraduate student majoring in Biology at University of California, San Diego. Her interests in neonatology led her to start working at The Lundquist Institute in 2017, under the mentorship of Dr. Virender Rehan. Celia has been studying the effects of perinatal nicotine and e-cigarette exposure on asthma phenotype in rat offspring, and their transmission in male and female germlines. Results show that e-cigarette exposure exacerbates asthma phenotype in both male and female offspring, perhaps more drastically than subcutaneous nicotine exposure. She has also investigated the correlations between perinatal nicotine exposure and heart extracellular matrix in rat offspring.

Her extensive work in the research field has led to 2 published manuscripts in Neonatology, and multiple oral and poster presentations. In addition, her research has led to recognition from the Society of Pediatric Research, who awarded her the SPR Student Research Award in 2019. Celia endeavors to become a neonatologist, while still being heavily involved in research. She plans on applying to medical school in the next application cycle.

MD/PhD Awardees

Robert D’Cruz

The Hospital for Sick Children

I am an MD/PhD candidate at The Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. I am completing my PhD at Sickkids Hospital under the supervision of Dr. Norman Rosenblum. My PhD thesis focuses on uncovering the molecular mechanisms driving kidney and nephron malformation.

Kidney malformation is the major cause of pediatric kidney failure, and nephron number is an important determinant of later kidney disease and complications. Our work uncovers novel and potential therapeutic targets to improve nephron endowment using both genetic mouse and human kidney organoid models of kidney malformation.

Sarah (Sadie) Meller

Yale School of Medicine

Sarah (Sadie) Meller is an MD/PhD candidate at Yale University, where she studies how immune cell activation may influence neuronal migration. In particular, she is interested in the activities of microglia, which are brain-resident immune cells responsible for both maintaining homeostatic conditions necessary for normal neurodevelopment as well as orchestrating the brain’s response to environmental insults.

For her 2022 PAS abstract submission, Sadie examined how microglia maintain homeostatic conditions in the neuroblast migratory corridor of the rostral migratory stream (RMS) during early postnatal development. Microglia depletion in mice induced an accumulation of apoptotic neuroblasts within a broader migratory corridor, suggesting that microglia may eliminate excess neuroblasts or selectively clear those showing aberrant migration. Sadie hopes that her research will provide insights into how infection or trauma during development may disrupt microglia’s normal activities and ultimately help improve therapeutic strategies following early life brain injury. In her future career, Sadie aims to research how environmental hazards impact brain development and communicate children’s vulnerability to the health effects of climate change.

Medical Awardees

Emilie Groulx-Boivin, BSc

Montreal Children’s Hospital, McGill University

Emilie Groulx-Boivin is a third-year medical student at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Under the mentorship of Dr. Jarred Garfinkle, she has been investigating the natural evolution of post-hemorrhagic ventricular dilatation in preterm newborns. She is being recognized for an abstract demonstrating that newborns without spontaneous resolution of post-hemorrhagic ventricular dilatation are at higher risk for neurodevelopmental impairments despite neurosurgical interventions.

Emilie is passionate about neonatal neurology. She hopes that her research will assist clinicians in prognostication and ultimately contribute to the development of new strategies to mitigate the burden of impairments among these patients.

Holly Shifman

Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine

Holly Shifman is a second-year medical student at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine. Under the mentorship of Dr. Sharad Wadhwani, Holly has been studying the role that social adversity – including primary care access, structural racism, state policies, and poverty – has on pediatric liver transplant outcomes. Through this work, she hopes to help characterize the barriers to ideal care and outcomes that children face after transplantation, and in turn, inform interventions that will improve long-term outcomes. Holly is being recognized for her work in identifying the association between living in areas with primary care shortages and an increased hazard of graft failure and death after pediatric liver transplant. She hopes that this work will help shape policies and health system changes that can reduce the risk and presence of these shortage areas and improve the health of all children with chronic illness.

Outside of this research, Holly serves on the leadership boards of the Pediatric Interest Group, the Wilderness Medical Society, and the student-run free clinic community garden at her medical school. She loves pediatrics, public health, the outdoors, and good coffee, and hopes to continue working to address and mitigate health disparities for children through research, advocacy, clinical care, and policy.

2022 Awardee

Sakiko Suzuki, MD

Nagoya University Hospital

I am engaged in basic research on the development of novel therapies using stem cell therapy for Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), with a particular focus on the prevention and treatment of associated psychomotor developmental disorders. In this research, I found that the neonatal rat model of BPD also showed behavioral abnormalities related to cognitive functions and histopathological changes not only in the cerebrum but also in the cerebellum. These results indicate that BPD is associated with psychomotor developmental disorders in the developing immature brain.

2022 Awardee 

Madeleine Murphy, PhD

National Maternity Hospital, Holles St, Dublin, Ireland

Madeleine graduated from medical school from the National University of Ireland, Galway. She then undertook pediatric training in Ireland. Towards the end of her training, she undertook research into the care of newborn infants and was awarded her PhD from University College Dublin. PhD studies include a number of randomized trials and observational studies of delivery room care of newborn infants. Central to this research was the POPART trial, a randomized trial of prophylactic oropharyngeal surfactant for preterm infants.

Naga Venkata Divya Challa, MD

University of Miami

I am Naga Challa, a second-year clinical fellow at Jackson Memorial Hospital/University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. My main area of research interest is Neonatal brain development which drove me to investigate the role of Gasdermin D (GSDMD) in the pathogenesis of brain injury in preterm infants and rodent models. To study the mechanistic role of GSDMD in brain injury of neonatal mice and preterm infants, we designed a basic science and a clinical project.

We randomized newborn GSDMD gene knockout (KO) mice and their wildtype (WT) littermates to room air or hyperoxia (85% O2) for 14 days. Analysis of the hippocampal sections of inflammatory injury by immunohistology was performed for allograft inflammatory factor 1 (AIF-1), a marker of microglial activation, and TUNEL assay, a measure of pyroptotic cell death. We found that hyperoxia-exposed WT mice had increased microglial counts with increased staining intensity and morphological changes of the microglia consistent with activation as well as increased numbers of TUNEL + cells, compared to room air exposed WT mice. Conversely, hyperoxia-exposed KO mice exhibited considerable resistance as hyperoxia failed to increase either AIF-1+ or TUNEL+ cell numbers.

We also found hyperoxia exposure differentially regulated a significantly higher number of genes associated with cell death in WT compared to KO indicating GSDMD plays a pathogenic role in preterm brain injury and targeting GSDMD may be beneficial in the prevention and treatment of brain injury and poor neurodevelopmental outcomes in preterm infants.

My clinical project focuses on the analysis of GSDMD expression in the circulating exosomes of preterm infants who are admitted to our NICU. This is an ongoing project and I intend to present the findings in PAS next year and submit a manuscript by the end of my fellowship.

I would like to thank the SPR Fellows’ Basic Research Award selection committee for considering my research work for this award.

Buyan-Ochir Orgil, MD

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center

Dr. Buyan-Ochir Orgil (Buyan) has completed his Medical School at the Health Science University of Mongolia, followed by Clinical Residency in Pediatrics and Fellowship in Pediatric Pulmonology. Currently, he is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Cardiology Genetics Research Laboratory at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC). The main research focus of Dr. Buyan is identifying genetic causes of cardiovascular diseases and investigating how genetic abnormalities contribute to the disease using systems genetics approach.

Regarding to this recognized research, Dr. Buyan has successfully employed his clinical knowledges in pursuing functional biology and systems genetics analysis of arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy, a disease of heart muscle with high risk of sudden cardiac death. In this study, he performed systems genetics analysis joining human and mouse genetic datasets. Human studies included identification of pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants in 229 patients with arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy using whole exome and Sanger sequencing. Murine studies included analysis of heart gene expression in BXD recombinant inbred (RI) mice (40 lines) derived from C57BL/6J and DBA/2J parental strains used as genetic reference population (GRP). Then, the filtered candidate pathogenic 24 genes with 82 pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants have been used to identify common genetic regulators of those genes through systems genetics analysis of heart transcriptomes across the BXD murine GRP. A joint human and mouse analysis suggested involvement of Chrm2, Mtpn, Lep and miR-29a in the pathogenesis of arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy functioning as the common upstream regulators among those 24 pathogenic genes identified.

Nneka Ugwu, MD

St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children

Respiratory viral infections are a major global health concern with influenza virus responsible for majority of the infections. Neonates especially the preterm neonates are particularly susceptible and at the moment there is no vaccine available for infants less than 6 months of age.

Cathelicidin Anti Microbial Peptide (CAMP) is an antiviral, antibacterial and antifungal peptide that plays a critical role in innate immune defense in mammals. We however, noted improved survival in neonatal mice devoid of the CAMP gene with increased infiltration of alveolar macrophages to the site of infection when compared to wild type mice.

Amanda J. Clark, MD

University of Texas Southwestern

Dr. Clark’s research focuses on renal metabolism and the way renal injury changes kidney energy utilization. Specifically, Dr. Clark studies NAD+ biosynthesis alterations in kidney injury. By understanding the metabolic changes that take place in the injury setting, the mechanisms whereby those changes take place, and the effects of those changes, Dr. Clark hopes to broaden the understanding of renal injury physiology. The ultimate goal is to harness these new findings into metabolism-based therapies that that may be able to prevent or treat acute kidney injury – a condition that affects millions of people in the world each year and currently has no targeted treatment.

Additionally, Dr. Clark is interested in developmental renal resilience. Her early research has revealed how genetic or environmental differences in NAD+ synthesis and availability affect resilience against acute stress. In the future, she aims to expand her work to examine how to define and measure baseline renal stress resilience and to learn what developmental aspects contribute to adulthood renal stress resilience.

Leslie Doucette, MD

Johns Hopkins

My project aims to assess for evidence of cholinergic dysfunction in a transgenic mouse model for human mutant amyloid precursor protein (APP- Swedish variation and presenilin (PS1-ΔE9) with neonatal HI. It is based on the hypothesis that early life brain injury in a genetically at-risk model for Alzheimer’s disease would manifest with worse learning, memory, and executive dysfunction than non-genetically at-risk mice and that these behavior deficits are based in early expression of cholinergic and other neuropathology seen in adult Alzheimers disease. Our first of their kind findings demonstrate an exacerbation of learning dysfunction in genetically at-risk mice with neonatal HI and that the degree of this behavioral deficit is associated with cholinergic axonal pathology manifesting at the level of the axonal terminal and neuronal synapse in the cortex.

My contributions involved all aspects of the project which included performing mouse touchscreen testing, food restriction with data collection and analysis in our APP/PS1 mouse model. I was also responsible for the cryopreservation and microtome sectioning of the mouse brains after perfusion. I performed immunohistochemistry experiments on the brain specimens. I performed histologic counting of neuritic and other pathology, did the statistical analysis and analysis for relationship of severity of behavioral outcome and neuropathology measures and wrote the abstract.

Thu Tran, DO

University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

I have been fascinated with pulmonary pathology which have lifelong consequences in neonates.  I approached my mentor, Dr. Joseph Alcorn, who has had a long career in pulmonary research. Through his guidance, I formulated my hypothesis on whether increased dosages of vitamin D could lead to different effects to the newborn lungs affected by hyperoxic acute lung injury.

With the expertise Dr. Alcorn could provide in basic sciences as well as a large wildtype mice colony, I learned the many skill sets needed to lead my own investigation.  I delved into the scientific literature available and learned about the mechanics to create a murine model of hyperoxic acute lung injury.

To analyze the data, I learned many procedures including tissue harvesting, histological analysis, isolation of mRNA, production of cDNA and qT-PCR as well as analysis of mRNA expression. I also collaborated with many other scientists to help make this project possible.  Most importantly, this research has taught me how to critically appraise and analyze results, use my observational skills to adequately draw conclusions, and continually adapt to the rigorous demands of scientific research.

Mauro Caffarelli, MD

University of California, San Francisco

I am a clinical fellow in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine with dual board-certification in Pediatrics and Child Neurology. My clinical and research interest lies in developing tools for improved bedside utilization of noninvasive neuromonitoring techniques. Specifically, I want to examine the potential for electroencephalography (EEG) to be used as a noninvasive neuromonitoring tool for detection and monitoring of focal cerebral injuries by frontline providers.

During my residency, I developed a novel quantitative EEG ‘Correlate of Injury to the Nervous System’ (COIN) index to highlight background EEG changes associated with stroke. Under the mentorship of Dr. Christine K Fox and Dr. Edilberto Amorim, I completed a pilot study showing that COIN could discriminate between patients with stroke and healthy controls (p=0.003, unpublished). I am currently working to develop validation studies to assess the utility of COIN in clinical scenarios representing high risk for stroke.

My long-term goal is to become an independent investigator who will accelerate development of methodologies for enhancing bedside detection and early mitigation of stroke. This work will have a broad positive impact in the neurological outcomes of critically ill children and will be applicable to most settings where a clinical neurological examination is limited.

Anna M Cushing, MD

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

Dr. Anna Cushing is a 2nd year pediatric emergency medicine fellow at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Dr Cushing’s primary academic interests include leveraging technology and the power of large data sets to research and improve healthcare delivery. Dr. Cushing currently also serves as fellow member of the Pediatric Emergency Medicine Collaborative Research Committee (PEM-CRC) steering committee.

She is awarded the 2022 SPR Fellows’ Clinical Research Award for her study titled “Predictors of Mental Health Revisits at Pediatric Emergency Departments in the United States” which was accepted as an oral platform presentation at the 2022 Pediatric Academic Societies Annual Meeting. Her work demonstrates the significant increase in mental health emergency department visits at U.S. children’s hospitals from 2015 to 2020, and, in a multivariable prediction model, identifies multiple patient, hospital, and community level predictors of pediatric mental health emergency revisits. Her work will be leveraged to support improved risk stratification and targeted implementation of prevention efforts for high-risk patients, in addition to benchmarking these potential interventions. She plans to continue this work as an academic pediatric emergency medicine physician and health services researcher.

Stephanie Gilley, MD, PhD

University of Colorado School of Medicine

Dr. Stephanie Gilley is a fellow in the Section of Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She attended undergraduate at Middlebury College in Vermont which is where she first fell in love with scientific research. She then went to Tufts University in Boston where she graduated with a medical degree and a PhD in genetics. She completed both her residency in pediatrics and a clinical fellowship in pediatric nutrition and obesity medicine at the University of Colorado. She is currently a research fellow supported by a NIDDK T32 training grant.

Dr. Gilley is being recognized as an SPR award recipient for her research showing that rapid weight gain during infancy interacts with maternal pre-pregnancy BMI to increase offspring BMI and adiposity. Rapid infant weight gain is a potentially modifiable factor that, combined with gestational obesity exposure, increases childhood obesity risk. In the future Dr. Gilley plans to study factors that contribute to rapid weight gain, particularly in children of mothers with obesity, to develop effective interventions. She would like to thank her primary research mentor Dr. Kartik Shankar for his encouragement and guidance with this and other projects.

Shipra Jain, MD

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

Evidence suggests that maternal hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) create a hostile uterine environment, which is associated with adverse neonatal neurodevelopmental outcomes later in life. The pathophysiology of these poor outcomes is not entirely elucidated. However, it is suspected to result from hypoxia-ischemia, nutrient deficiency, and/or angiogenic and immuno-vascular dysfunction related to pre-eclampsia, a subtype of HDP. While animal models and studies of term infants consistently indicate poorer behavioral and neurodevelopmental outcomes following exposure to HDP, reported effects on preterm infants are mixed, showing positive, negative, or no association with neurodevelopmental impairments. This variability may be due to comparisons with heterogeneous control groups and/or incomplete/inappropriate control of confounding. Thus, adequately controlling for confounders and comprehensively evaluating brain structural abnormalities on MRI at term-equivalent age (TEA) that are not confounded by factors occurring after NICU discharge may answer this question.

Therefore, after a thorough literature review, I devised a hypothesis-driven research protocol to investigate the impact of HDP on neonatal brain development in very preterm infants under the able guidance of my mentors. I submitted an amendment to my institutional review board to leverage the ongoing Cincinnati Infant Neurodevelopment Early Prediction Study (CINEPS PI: Nehal Parikh), whose primary goal is to use advanced neuroimaging measures to improve the prediction of neurodevelopmental outcomes in very preterm infants. I participated in advanced MRI tutorials with my mentors and self-directed learning to understand these advanced imaging measures, which I used as an outcome measure in my research. I reviewed 395 medical records, both maternal and neonatal, to find further details needed to analyze our hypothesis and added valuable information to the existing data set. I ran the descriptive analyses of my study groups using SPSS 28, which my statisticians confirmed, and in collaboration, we then established the independent risk of HDP on the development of brain abnormalities. I prepared the initial draft of the PAS abstract and am currently writing the manuscript with guidance from my mentors. In ongoing research, we are also examining the effects of HDP and pre-eclampsia on neurodevelopmental outcomes and the potential mediating role of early structural brain abnormalities on neurodevelopmental impairments at two years corrected age.

Our study will contribute to a greater understanding of the pathophysiological role of maternal hypertension on preterm brain and neurodevelopment. In addition, it will aid in the early identification of these children at the highest risk, which in turn will be helpful in prognostication and counseling for parents. My mentors (Nehal Parikh, Maria Barnes-Davis, and Ting Ting Fu) have played a significant role in helping and guiding me through every step. I aspire to continue this work beyond my fellowship into an academic career as a physician-scientist focusing on research and providing excellent clinical care to improve long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes of premature infants.

Mausma Bawa, MD

Jacobs School of Medicine, University at Buffalo

Dr. Mausma Bawa, MD is currently a final-year Neonatology fellow at the University at Buffalo, New York. Her interest in neonatal resuscitation began during her medical training in India, where she witnessed high morbidity and mortality from birth asphyxia. Under the able mentorship of Dr. Praveen Chandrasekharan, her current research focuses on the impact of resuscitation and evaluation of cardiac and brain injury using an ovine bradycardia model.

Dr. Bawa is a junior member of the ESPR, Society for Pediatric Research and MSPR – Lung Biology Research Cohort Network – a pilot program to support early career pediatric researchers.

She is the recipient of multiple awards including the ESPR Young Investigator Trainee Award 2021and the SPR Fellows Clinical Research Award 2021. Additionally, she is one of the 3 early-stage investigators nominated by SPR to present her research at the 125th Annual Meeting of the Japan Pediatric Society (April 2022).

This year, she is a recipient of the 2022 ESPR Abbott Nutrition Trainee Diversity in the Workforce Travel Award for her abstract “A randomized control trial comparing the current recommendations of ventilation and chest compression vs ventilation during neonatal resuscitation using an ovine model of bradycardia”. She is also one of the 29 trainees to receive the PAS 2022 Trainee Travel Award happening in Denver, Colorado (April 2022).

As a future neonatologist and researcher, her goal is to optimize neonatal outcomes by developing interventions to prevent or mitigate morbidities due to perinatal asphyxia.

Elizabeth Salazar, MD

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Elizabeth (Betsy) Salazar is a third year fellow in neonatology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She is focused on understanding how the structure and process of the perinatal health system impact perinatal outcomes and quality of care.

As a member of the CHOP Neonatal-Perinatal Health Services Research Group, she is involved in several projects studying perinatal care delivery. Her work focuses on quality of care in moderate and late preterm infants and risk-appropriate supports for the transition from NICU to outpatient care. She is currently completing a Masters of Science in Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. Her primary mentors are Scott Lorch and Sara Handley.

She is being recognized as an SPR award recipient for work examining how a novel Maternal Vulnerability Index may be used to examine geographic variation in perinatal outcomes.