Executive Director, Women's Global Health Imperative, RTI International
Dr. Padian was formerly Professor in residence at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She is now an Adjunct Professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. She earned her undergraduate degree in Child Development and Education at Colgate University, her M.S. at Syracuse University, and M.P.H. and Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Padian continues to make important contributions to the field of AIDS research. For further information, please see Dr. Padian's UCB profile.
Co-Founder, Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health
Co-Founder, Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH)
It is with great sadness that the Bixby Center announces the passing of our co-founder and co-director, Dr. Felicia Stewart, in April of 2006. Dr. Stewart's leadership and vision helped make the Bixby Center what it is today, and she will be dearly missed by her colleagues and staff.
San Francisco Chronicle article
Felicia Stewart, MD, was an Adjunct Professor and a co-director of the Bixby Center. She also served as the director of Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH). A reproductive health specialist and abortion provider herself, Dr. Stewart dedicated much of her career to designing research and policies that made safe, effective contraception and abortion accessible to women who need it.
Prior to her appointment as a member of the faculty at UCSF, Dr. Stewart directed the Reproductive Health Program at The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation for 3 years; she was responsible for grant making in the field of reproductive health and in supporting the Foundation’s work with media and public education. From 1994 through 1996 she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services where she helped formulate and implement domestic and international policies on family planning and population issues. In this position she had direct responsibility for management of the National Family Planning Program (Title X) and the Adolescent Family Life Program (Title XX).
Prior to her appointment in the Department of Health and Human Services in 1994, Dr. Stewart was in gynecological practice as a member of the Sutter Medical Group, a large multi-specialty medical group in Sacramento, California. She served as Director of Medical Research for Sutter Medical Foundation, and was responsible for developing a program of clinical research for the medical group as a whole. Her special research interest in contraceptive development led to numerous clinical studies carried out in conjunction with her clinical practice. She also served as a member of the Technical Advisory Committee for the CONRAD (Contraceptive Research and Development) Program that oversees research funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Her experience included work as Associate Medical Director for Planned Parenthood of Sacramento Valley, and as a part-time staff physician at the Student Health Service at California State University at Sacramento, and at Planned Parenthood of San Francisco. She also served as a clinical faculty member in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine. Dr. Stewart authored Understanding Your Body: The Concerned Woman's Guide to Gynecology and Health, a non-technical reference book, and co-authored Contraceptive Technology, a major reference source in the field of family planning. She was a nationally recognized lecturer, and spoke frequently to both professional and non-technical audiences.
Dr. Stewart's projects at UCSF included patient preference for and use of contraceptive methods, advanced provision of emergency contraception, teen pregnancy in diverse communities, gender power and risk for sexually transmitted disease and unplanned pregnancy, integration of early abortion into women’s primary care, and the economics of abortion provision.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed.
Chief, Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD)
Control Branch, California Department of Public Health (CDPH)
Academic Appointments:
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Division of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of California, San Francisco
Assistant Adjunct Professor, Division of Epidemiology, University of California, Berkeley
Email: heidi.bauer@cdph.ca.gov
Since 1999, Heidi M. Bauer, MD, MS, MPH has worked for the STD Control Branch in the California Department of Public Health, first as a medical epidemiologist, then Chief of the Office of Medical and Scientific Affairs, Chief of the Program Development and Evaluation Section, and now branch Chief. The goal of the STD Control Branch is to reduce the impact of STDs in California. Since 2002, she has been on faculty for the California STD/HIV Prevention Training Center (CA PTC). The CA PTC is part of the National Network of STD/HIV Prevention Training Centers that provide courses designed to meet the professional development needs of a wide array of medical, health promotion, and community professionals serving persons and communities impacted by STD and HIV. Since 2006, she has been an Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of California at Berkeley. In this role, she teaches the graduate seminar (PH 253G): Sexual Health Promotion and STD Control.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Title: Improving Sexually Transmitted Disease Programs through Assessment, Assurance, Policy Development, and Prevention Strategies (STD AAPPS)
Key Funder(s): Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Major Project Goal: This program grant funds STD control activities in the CDC-designated California Project Area.
Role: Principal Investigator
Title: HPV Vaccine Impact Monitoring Project through Surveillance of Cervical Precanerous Lesions
Key Funder(s): Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Major Project Goal: This is a demonstration project to assess feasibility of establishing a surveillance system for HPV-associated cervical disease.
Role: co-Principal Investigator
Title: In-TOUCH: Innovative Technology-based Outreach and Utilization of Client Home-testing to Improve Chlamydia/Gonorrhea Re-testing
Key Funder(s): Office of Population Affairs
Major Project Goal: The primary goal of this multi-clinic study is to identify effective, easy-to-implement strategies to improve chlamydia and gonorrhea retesting in family planning clinical settings.
Role: Principal Investigator
Updated November 2013
Senior Researcher, Family PACT Evaluation, Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies
Email: antonia.biggs@ucsf.edu
Dr. M. Antonia Biggs is a Social Psychologist at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. Her research is dedicated to better understanding the barriers faced by economically disadvantaged populations in accessing reproductive health services so that policy can be designed to improve their social and health outcomes. Her specific research interests include unintended pregnancy, access to family planning services, Latina adolescent childbearing, service delivery for long-acting contraceptives, and the psychological well-being of women having abortions. Dr. Biggs is directing a survey of family planning providers’ delivery of long-acting contraception in California, a study interviewing clients’ regarding their experiences with family planning services, participating in the evaluation of the Colorado and Iowa Initiatives to reduce unintended pregnancy by increasing access to long-acting contraception, and working on a nationwide longitudinal prospective study of the health and well-being of women who seek abortion. Dr. Biggs holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from Boston University.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed.
Updated June 2013
Chief, STD Control Branch, California Department of Public Health
Email: gail.bolan@cdph.ca.gov
Director, Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies
Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Adolescent Medicine and the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences
Director, Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, UCSF
Executive Director, National Adolescent Health Information and Innovation Center
Associate Director, Public Policy Analysis & Education Center for Adolescent and Young Adult Health
Email: Claire.Brindis@ucsf.edu
Dr. Claire Brindis, a native of Argentina, obtained a
Master’s Degree in Public Health from UCLA, and a Doctoral Degree in Public
Health and Behavioral Sciences from U.C. Berkeley. Dr. Brindis' research
interests focus on adolescent and child health policy and women's health, as
well as the implementation of health care reform and immigration health. Dr.
Brindis served as a frequent policy advisor to government policymakers and
private foundations. Her writings, publications and personal consultation in the
field of adolescent pregnancy prevention were extensively utilized in the
planning and implementation of various state and federal initiatives.
Dr. Brindis has served as Chair of the Population,
Reproductive Health and Family Planning Section of the American Public Health
Association and formerly on the Board of the Guttmacher Institute. She also
participated on the Steering Committee of the CDC's National Health Objectives
for 2010, as well as for 2020; she served on the IOM Committee that made
recommendations to eliminate co-payments for women’s preventive health services
under the Accountable Care Act. Dr. Brindis is a member of the National
Advisory Committee for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy's Latino
Pregnancy Prevention.
Among her awards, she was honored with the 2000 Beverlee A.
Myers Award for Excellence in Public Health, recognized by a California State
Senate Resolution for her achievements, received the 2001 Maternal and Child
Health Director’s Award in recognition of her contributions made to improve the
health of infants, mothers, children, adolescents, and children with special
health care needs in the Nation, and was elected to the Institute of Medicine
in 2011.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed.
Updated July 2013
Co-Director, KEMRI-UCSF Infectious Disease Research Training Program
Principal Research Officer, Center for Microbiology Research, KEMRI
Honorary Lecturer, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Nairobi
Associate Research Professor, Departments of Global Health and Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Washington
Email: bukusie@globalhealth.ucsf.edu
Since, 1995, Dr. Bukusi has served as the Co-Director of the UCSF-Kenya Medical Research Institute's collaborative Research Care and Treatment Program (RCTP). Since 2004, she has been co-PI of the CDC/PEPFAR-funded Kenya-based Family AIDS Care and Education Services (FACES) HIV care and support program. As part of FACES and in collaboration with Dr. Craig Cohen, she developed the Student Training Elective Program (STEP), which places medical students and residents in FACES clinics. She has over 15 years experience conducting research in HIV prevention, care, and treatment among women and men in Kenya. Her research focuses on development of HIV prevention technologies, HIV care and treatment, and ethics in research. Dr. Bukusi's training in Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology is from the University of Nairobi; her training in Epidemiology and Public Health are from the University of Washington; and here training in research ethics is from the University of Cape Town School of Medicine.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed.
Updated July 2013
Chief, Epidemiology Unit, Surveillance and Epidemiology Section, Sexually Transmitted Diseases Control Branch, California Department of Public Health
Email: joan.chow@cdph.ca.gov
Joan M. Chow received her BA from Yale University, and her MPH, DrPH from UCLA in the School of Public Health Divisions of Population, Family, and International Health, and Epidemiology. Her dissertation was on "The Association between Chlamydia trachomatis and Ectopic Pregnancy: A Matched Case-Control Study. She was awarded an American Social Health Association postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Julius Schachter, UCSF Chlamydia Research Laboratory, followed by appointment to the UCSF Department of Laboratory Medicine as Assistant Research Epidemiologist. She is currently appointed to the UCSF Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology as a Specialist, and is based in the California Department of Public Health, Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Control Branch as Chief of the Epidemiology Unit, Surveillance and Epidemiology Section.
Publications on PubMed
Updated January 2009
Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Medical Director, Bay Area Perinatal AIDS Center (BAPAC)
Associate Director, National Perinatal HIV Consultation and Referral Service
Email: cohand@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Deborah Cohan is Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at University of California, San Francisco. She is medical director of Bay Area Perinatal AIDS Center (BAPAC) and provides preconception, prenatal and gynecologic care for HIV-infected women and HIV-uninfected women in serodiscordant relationships. She is also the Associate Director of the National HIV Perinatal Hotline and Clinician’s Network and Associate Director of the UCSF Fellowship in Reproductive Infectious Diseases. Dr. Cohan is a member of the DHHS Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents and her research interests include prenatal HIV testing strategies, the use of combined antiretroviral therapy during pregnancy and lactation in the resource-limited setting, prevention of placental malaria among HIV-infected pregnant women, and diagnostic strategies for latent tuberculosis infection in pregnancy.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Updated May 2012
Professor In-Residence, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Founding Director, Family AIDS Care and Education Services (FACES)
International Director, UCSF-Gladstone Institute Center for AIDS Research
Director, UCSF Reproductive Infectious Disease Fellowship and UCGHI GloCal Health Fellowship
Email: ccohen@globalhealth.ucsf.edu
Craig Cohen, MD, MPH, is a Professor In-Residence in the UCSF Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Co-Director of the UC Global Health Institute (UCGHI) Center of Expertise in Women’s Health & Empowerment, International Director for the UCSF-Gladstone Institute Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and an Attending Physician at San Francisco General Hospital. He conducts medical research in three major areas: i) HIV and sexually transmitted infection prevention, ii) HIV/AIDS care and support and iii) integration of HIV and reproductive health services in developing countries.
In 1994, Dr. Cohen and his colleague Dr. Elizabeth Bukusi at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) established the Research Care and Treatment Program (RCTP) a collaboration with projects in Nyanza Province and Nairobi, Kenya. In addition to conducting research, the goal of the program is to enhance local capacity to conduct biomedical research through training and infrastructure development. RCTP employs over 700 full-time staff in Kenya including epidemiologists, physicians, nurse-counselors, laboratory technologists, field workers, data managers, biostatisticians and administrative staff.
Dr. Cohen has been the Founding Director of the Family AIDS Care and Education Services (FACES) since its creation in 2004. FACES is a CDC PEPFAR-funded HIV/AIDS care and treatment program in Western Kenya and Nairobi, that supports the Kenyan Ministry of Health at 140 facilities, and has enrolled over 130,000 patients into the HIV care program. As part of FACES, Dr. Cohen has also developed the Student Training Elective Program (STEP), which allows medical and other professional students and residents to do clinical and research electives at FACES-supported sites.
Additionally, Dr. Cohen directs the UCSF Reproductive Infectious Disease (RID) Fellowship, which aims to provide Ob/Gyn and post-doctoral trainees with the tools and experience necessary to develop into independent investigators and launch productive careers in the field of RID. In addition, he directs the UCGHI GloCal Health Fellowship, a program that provides support to post-doctoral fellows and doctoral students from throughout the UC system, as well as the 27 affiliated international institutions located on five continents. Overall, Dr. Cohen has directly mentored more than 70 predoctoral students, residents and post-doctoral fellows, most of who have conducted research in Kenya.
Title: MucoCept - Exploratory Clinical Studies in Human Subjects Involving the Use of Genetically Engineered GusA-Expressing Lactobacillus
Key Funder(s): Osel, Inc.Major Project
Goal: This set of studies will explore the safety and colonization rate of a genetically engineered Lactobacillus strain administered vaginally as a single or three doses to healthy women. This will prepare for future expanded studies on the safety and efficacy of a live microbicide MucoCept delivering antiretroviral agents to the vaginal flora for prevention of HIV acquisition.
Principal Investigator: Craig Cohen
Title: Pilot agricultural intervention for food security and HIV health outcomes in Kenya
Key Funder: NIMH
Major Project Goal: This study investigates whether a combination intervention including agricultural training, irrigation and microfinance will improve the health of people infected by HIV including their families.
Principal Investigator: Craig Cohen and Sheri Weiser
Title: Integration of Family Planning Services into HIV Care and Treatment in Nyanza Province, Kenya Key
Funder(s): Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Major Project Goal: This study seeks to determine whether integrating family planning services into HIV care and treatment programs affects contraceptive uptake, contraceptive continuation, and unintended pregnancy rates.
Principal Investigator: Craig Cohen
Distinguished Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Director, Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health
Director, Fellowship in Family Planning at UCSF
Former Chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology, San Francisco General Hospital
Email: darneyp@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Dr. Darney is a Distinguished Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He received his undergraduate degree in experimental psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, his M.D. at UCSF, and his M.Sc. at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is board-certified in preventive medicine and obstetrics and gynecology and received his training in these specialties at the Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston. He has served on the medical faculties at Harvard University, the Oregon Health Sciences University, and UCSF.
Dr. Darney is the author of 200 scientific papers, scholarly reviews, and book chapters on contraception and gynecology and 3 books on family planning. He has conducted clinical and acceptability trials of implant, injectable and oral contraceptives, contragestins and intrauterine devices. Under his direction, the UCSF Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health has conducted investigations of contraceptives for The National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control, foundations, and pharmaceutical companies. The Center provides family planning services to teenagers and indigent women in San Francisco, trains gynecologists from all over the world in family planning technology and is the evaluator of California's family planning program.
Over the past 25 years, Dr. Darney has served as scientific advisor and field evaluator to the American Public Health Association, Engender Health, International Projects Assistance Service, Family Health International, the U.S. Agency for International Development, Pathfinder International and the Centers for Disease Control. He has served as a visiting professor and consultant around the world including Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Egypt, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sudan, Thailand, Turkey, Tunisia, Ukraine, Viet Nam, Zambia and Zimbabwe, as well as several European countries. He is a reviewer for the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology and a dozen other periodicals. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Engender Health, and the Guttmacher Institute as well as the editorial boards of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Contraception.
Clinical Interests:
Research Interests:
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed.
Updated July 2013
Associate Professor in Residence, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences, Family & Community Medicine, and Epidemiology & Biostatistics
Email: cdehlendorf@fcm.ucsf.edu
Dr. Dehlendorf is an Associate Professor in Residence at the University of California, San Francisco, with appointments in the Departments of Family and Community Medicine, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, and Epidemiology and Biostatistics. She is a family physician with advanced training in family planning and a Master’s Degree in Clinical Research. Her research program investigates disparities in contraceptive use and contraceptive counseling, including studies examining the relationship of patient race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status with variation in health care providers’ recommendations for contraceptive methods and with the quality of contraceptive counseling. One such study found that providers were more likely to recommend an intrauterine device – which is a highly effective, provider controlled method – to low income black and Hispanic women than they were to low income white women. In addition, she has analyzed several large databases, consisting of both administrative and survey data, in order to further our understanding of disparities in reproductive health outcomes. Currently, she is analyzing a cohort study investigating contraceptive counseling, which involved audiorecording over 300 contraceptive counseling visits and following women for six months after their visit to assess contraceptive continuation. In addition, she is investigating social influences on contraceptive use.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed.
Updated July 2013
Assistant Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Senior Technical Advisor, Fundación Oriéntame/ESAR
Email: tdepineres@globalhealth.ucsf.edu
Teresa DePiñeres, MD, MPH, FACOG, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the School of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco. She is also a faculty member of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. Dr. DePiñeres is Senior Technical Consultant for Oriéntame and ESAR Foundations, non-profit organizations based in Colombia, South America, with more than 30 years of experience in incomplete abortion and unintended pregnancy management. In her position Dr. DePiñeres is helping expand newly legal abortion services provision and training, including second trimester DyE services, as well as evidence-based abortion and family planning, throughout Colombia and Latin America.
Dr. DePiñeres did her medical school training at University of California, Los Angeles, and completed a fellowship in Family Planning and Abortion at Johns Hopkins University, where she received her Masters in Public Health, focused on International Health and Population. Teresa has studied abortion and postabortion issues in Central and South America, postpartum contraception, early surgical abortion, female-controlled methods of STI/HIV prevention, unintended pregnancy in Zimbabwean adolescents, and contraception in HIV-positive women in Africa.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Updated November 2013
Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Email: dreye@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Eleanor Drey, M.D., Ed.M., is the Medical Director of the Women's Options Center of San Francisco General Hospital and an Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences of the University of California, San Francisco. She received her M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1996. After completing her obstetrics and gynecology residency at UCSF, she completed a Clinical and Research Fellowship in Family Planning there.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Updated May 2012
Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Director of Research, Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH)
Email: greened@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Diana Greene Foster, Ph.D., is a demographer who uses quantitative models and analyses to evaluate the effectiveness of family planning policies and the effect of unintended pregnancy on women’s lives. She received her undergraduate degree in Political Economy of Natural Resources from UC Berkeley, her M.A. in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University, and her Ph.D. in Demography and Public Policy from Princeton as well. Dr. Foster designed and carried out the evaluation of access to care under Family PACT, California’s family planning program and estimated the pregnancies averted through this program. This work demonstrated the effectiveness of the program in expanding the number of points of service, improving access to care, particularly among Latinas, and reducing the incidence of unintended pregnancy. Dr. Foster created a new methodology for estimating pregnancies averted based on a Markov model and a microsimulation to identify the cost-effectiveness of advance provision of emergency contraception. Dr. Foster is currently leading a nationwide longitudinal prospective study of women who seek abortion including both women who do and do not receive the abortion.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Updated December 2013
Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Email: harperc@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Cynthia C. Harper, PhD, is a faculty member of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. She received her master’s in international and public affairs from Columbia University, doctorate in demography and public policy from Princeton University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research aims to improve family planning policies and clinical service delivery through streamlined access to care. She has worked to remove unnecessary procedures and exams in contraceptive care, including the pelvic examination for hormonal contraception and cumbersome protocols for the provision of long-acting contraceptives. Her research has supported expanded roles of the nursing and pharmacy professions in the delivery of contraceptives, as well as over-the-counter access. She has conducted a series of studies on emergency contraception, and measured the impact of increased access on sexual risk-taking, STIs and pregnancy. These studies represent translational research, from a pharmacokinetics and tolerability studies in young adolescents, to a large-scale randomized trial on service delivery that informed policy in the U.S. and other countries. The data were evaluated by the FDA in its approval of over-the-counter status of levonorgestrel emergency contraception, and in the subsequent removal of the age restriction. Dr. Harper is leading provider training and patient education initiatives on the copper IUD for emergency contraception. She recently completed a national cluster randomized trial in 40 Planned Parenthood clinics to evaluate the impact of provider training on increased access to long-acting reversible contraceptives, and is holding trainings in a variety of clinic settings across the U.S., including primary care settings.
Dr. Harper has worked in close collaboration with organizations and investigators in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, including a multi-center NIH study in Southern Africa. She designed national probability surveys that assessed the capacity of nurses and physicians to integrate new contraceptive and HIV prevention technologies into their clinical practices. Results showed high interest in training in long-acting reversible contraceptives, as well as in the development of female-controlled methods, including microbicides. She has conducted research in developing regions on the impact of unsafe abortion on maternal morbidity and mortality, and has evaluated the impact of policy changes on the safety, availability and quality of services. Dr. Harper is the 2013 recipient of Guttmacher Institute’s Darroch Award in Excellence in Sexual and Reproductive Health Research.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed.
Updated December 2013
Kaiser-Permanente Center for Health Research, Northwest
Portland, Oregon
Jillian Henderson, PhD, MPH, received an MPH in Epidemiology and a PhD in Health Services Research from the University of Michigan and completed an Ellertson Social Science Postdoctoral Fellowship at UCSF. As an Assistant Professor at UCSF, her research focused on health care access and quality related to contraceptive choice and reproductive health. She also led a research program in Nepal examining the effects of abortion legalization and factors related to unsafe abortion. She continues to contribute to studies focused on provider and patient perspectives on reproductive health care. In her current position at the Kaiser-Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Oregon, she endeavors to improve population health by conducting systematic evidence reviews to inform evidence-based recommendations on preventive health services delivery in the United States.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed.
Updated November 2013
Assistant Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Email: megan.huchko@ucsf.edu
Megan Huchko, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. She received her medical degree at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and completed her ob-gyn training at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. She completed a Reproductive Infectious Disease Fellowship and a traineeship in AIDS Prevention Studies at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) at UCSF. During the first year of her fellowship, she completed a Masters in Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on optimizing the diagnosis and treatment of cervical cancer among women with HIV in resource-limited settings, including validating screening and treatment strategies and looking at structural and contextual factors related to screening access.
She is currently involved in the Family AIDS Care and Education Services (FACES) program in western Kenya, a series of HIV care and treatment centers funded by the CDC, as part of a collaboration between UCSF and the Kenya Medical Research Institute. She designed and implemented a cervical cancer screening and treatment program for the HIV-infected women receiving care at the clinic, using resource appropriate screening strategies. She is following a cohort of these women to determine overall treatment efficacy, impact of immunosuppression on short and longterm outcomes, and the effect of HAART on the recurrence of precancerous lesions. She is completing a four-year NIH-career development award in which she validated two low-cost visual inspection techniques to screen for cervical cancer. In addition, she received the 2011 Landon Foundation-AACR INNOVATOR Award for Cancer Prevention Research for work on a protein biomarker for cervical cancer screening among HIV-infected women.
More recently, Dr. Huchko’s work has focused on strategies to improve the delivery of evidence-proven screening and treatment strategies. Her team validated an educational intervention to inrease knowledge and decrease stigma around cervical cancer in order to increase screening uptake. She is evaluating various models of service delivery, including integration with other health care services and periodic screening through community campaigns.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Updated November 2013
Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology, San Francisco General Hospital
Email: jacksonr@obgyn.ucsf.edu
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Professor, Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, UCSF
Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH)
Professor Emerita, Dept. of Sociology, University of California, Davis
Email: joffec@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Carole Joffe, PhD, is a professor at the UCSF Bixby Center's Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) Program and a professor of sociology emerita at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on the social dimensions of reproductive health, with a particular interest in abortion provision. She is the author of Dispatches from the Abortion Wars: The Costs of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients and the Rest of Us; Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe v Wade, and The Regulation of Sexuality: Experiences of Family Planning Workers and numerous articles on abortion in scholarly journals. Besides writing for an academic audience, she also writes frequently for the general public on the topics of reproductive health and reproductive politics. In 2013, , Dr. Joffe received the Lifetime Achievement Aweard from the Society of Family Planning; in 2010, she was named the Irwin Cushner Lecturer by the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals; in 2006, Dr. Joffe was awarded the Public Service Award by the Academic Senate of the University of California, Davis in recognition of her research that benefitted many reproductive health organizations. She received her BA from Brandeis University and her PhD in sociology from the U.of California, Berkeley.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Updated December 2013
Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences
Director of Gynecology, San Francisco General Hospital
Email: korna@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Abner P. Korn, M.D., is a Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the School of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco. He is also a faculty member of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health.
Dr. Korn received his doctorate in medicine at Yale Medical School and did his residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Korn joined the faculty of the University of California, San Francisco in 1990 where he is currently Director of Gynecology at San Francisco General Hospital and also attends at the Women’s Continence Center at Mount Zion Hospital. Formerly, his research has focused on clinical aspects of gynecologic infectious diseases including HIV, bacterial vaginosis, pelvic inflammatory disease, human papillomavirus, and herpes. He has also participated in research in urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse, especially in minority patient populations. Recently he has focused on investigating the outcome of obstetric fistula repair in East Africa and is also involved in educating health care providers and in clinical service in Uganda and Rwanda.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Updated December 2013
National Director of the Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Training Program and the Fellowship in Family Planning
Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health
Email: landyu@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Dr. Uta Landy is an internationally recognized expert in medical education in family planning. She has worked in the field of family planning and abortion since 1970 as an international consultant, researcher, counselor, administrator, writer, and advocate.
She directed one of the first abortion clinics in New York after legalization in 1970, and became the first Executive Director of the National Abortion Federation in 1979.
Her global work started in 1985 when she convened the first International Christopher Tietze Symposium in conjunction with FIGO in Berlin, resulting in the publication of the proceedings with Professor S.S. Ratnam from Singapore University of ‘Prevention and Treatment of Contraceptive Failure’. In 1999, she founded the Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Training Program in Abortion and Family Planning at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, which now counts 70 programs in major medical schools in the US and Canada, dedicated to the integration of family planning into medical education in the US and Canada. In 1999, she also assumed the role of National Director of the Fellowship in Family Planning, the only post graduate fellowship in family planning, which is now based in 29 leading universities and teaching hospitals in the US. Both programs are used as educational models integrating abortion and contraception training worldwide.
In 2003, Dr. Landy collaborated with Pathfinder International to develop a three year collaboration to reform the Vietnamese curriculum in abortion and contraception. Delegations of Vietnamese policymakers and academic leaders from all eight medical schools, including deans, department heads and representatives from the ministries of health attended specially designed two week courses at UCSF leading to major reform in evidence based clinical care and didactics in medical education in Vietnam. She and her UCSF team of clinician educators serve as advisors and consultants to teaching hospitals and academic leaders to integrate teaching in abortion and contraception or post abortion care in Thailand, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Uruguay.
In her capacity as the director of the FPF and the global placement of 250 family planning fellows, she has established relationships with faculty in South and Central America, East and Southern Africa, Egypt, Thailand, Iran, Indonesia, Afghanistan and Nepal, providing technical assistance in capacity building, medical education and evidence based clinical care.
She is the recipient of Senator Barbara Boxer’s Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition with the ‘Woman of the Year’ award, the NAF Christopher Tietze Humanitarian award, and PPFA’s Margret Sanger award.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed.
Updated December 2013
Project Director, TPP Statewide Evaluation & Family PACT Evaluation Special Studies, Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies
Email: jan.malvin@ucsf.edu
Dr. Jan Malvin serves as Project Director at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Malvin is a research psychologist with doctoral training in qualitative and quantitative evaluation methodology and more than twenty years of experience evaluating social programs. Much of her professional work has related to the prevention of adolescent risk behavior. She has evaluated school-based programs designed to prevent alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse; HIV and STDs; and teen pregnancy. For six years at the University of California at Berkeley, she directed the California Department of Social Services’ statewide evaluation of Cal-Learn, a large, complex, welfare reform demonstration project to keep teenage parents in school. Jan holds a BA in Developmental Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a PhD in Educational Psychology from Northwestern University.
Publications on PubMed
Updated January 2009
Academic Coordinator, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
SGBV Advisor
Email: maternowska@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Dr. M. Catherine Maternowska conducts original ethnographic research examining family planning, safe abortion and reproductive rights. Her research includes an examination of the impact of sexually transmitted infections, poor pre-natal care, and an absence of good obstetric services on the health of women and children living in poverty in urban California, Mexico, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Kenya, where she currently resides. She has served as Principal Investigator and/or Senior Investigator on at least nine projects addressing gender, power, and cultural issues since arriving at UCSF. From Kenya she is working on safe abortion training and advocacy in three sub-Saharan countries as well as performing policy and research on sexual and gender-based violence in East Africa. In 2010, Dr. Maternowska has been appointed as a Child Protection Specialist and Gender Based Advisor to UNICEF for Haiti (during the post-earthquake recovery).
Dr. Maternowska is interested in exploring the ways that health-related policies have unintended consequences that harm rather than enhance the public’s health. She uses ethnographic research as a tool for investigating how best to improve policy and ultimately practice. She is keenly interested in developing further studies on the social dynamics of NGO activities in health that assess the interface between international development, national counterparts, and the poor communities they are supposed to serve.
Her field activities, based in Mombasa, Kenya (current residence), Tanzania and Zimbabwe focus on two areas: safe abortion and family planning access, training and advocacy and sexual and gender-based violence, especially among children. Ongoing projects include a SGBV media advocacy project—highlighting the dangers of unsafe abortion; research testing the feasibility of training local Kenyan police to distribute Emergency Contraception to SGBV survivors; and building paralegal reproductive health advocacy teams to empower local, community-based reproductive health activities. Related, she is currently developing a research collaboration studying the political economy of sex workers on the Coast Province. In 2009, Dr. Maternowska produced with colleagues Sexual Violence: Setting the Research Agenda for Kenya.
Her second book, a co-edited work with colleagues from the Population Council, explores young girls’ vulnerability in the pathway of HIV/AIDS. Frustrated by the inability of scientific journals to address the diversity of girls’ challenges in the face of HIV/AIDS pandemic, the book will be a participatory publication—one that embraces the voices of girls, girl activists and advocates, and frontline service providers. The goal will be to provide results that reveal the connections—and too often disconnections—between policy, program intention and girls’ lived-experience. Dr. Maternowska believes that conventional wisdom leaves the girls behind. The anthology, due to be published in 2010, will address this crucial information gap, through a critical, thought-provoking collection of essays and experiences from the field.
mobile Tanzania/Kenya: +254 725 892 872
mobile Zimbabwe: +263 912 469 812
PO Box 87518
Mombasa, Kenya
East Africa
Publications on PubMed
Updated May 2010
Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Medical Director, Women's Options Center, Mt. Zion
Consulting Medical Director, Women's Community Clinic
Email: meckstrothk@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Dr. Meckstroth received her MD from the University of Chicago and completed a residency in Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Southern California LA County Hospital. She then completed a fellowship in Family Planning Clinical Care and Research at UCSF, during which she also obtained an MPH in Health Policy and Management at UC Berkeley. Since early residency, her research has focused on the use of mifepristone and misoprostol. Currently, she is Associate Clinical Professor at UCSF, working primarily at SFGH. She is the Director of Family Planning Services at the Mt. Zion campus, which provides Family Planning services and miscarriage care for UCSF and community patients. She also is the Consulting Medical Director of the Women's Community Clinic, a community clinic that provides free and low cost reproductive health care and outreach to Bay Area women. In addition to general gynecology and obstetrics, she haser special academic interests in mifepristone and misoprostol, pelvic procedure pain and care to underserved women.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Updated December 2013
Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Director, Safe Motherhood Programs, Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health
Adjunct Professor, Maternal Child Health Program, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Email: suellenmiller@gmail.com
Dr. Miller is the Director of the Safe Motherhood Program at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Professor at UCSF. The Safe Motherhood Program comprises intervention projects and research on critical maternal health issues. Dr. Miller is Adjunct Professor of the Maternal and Child Health Program at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health. Dr. Miller was the principal investigator on multiple studies of the Non-pneumatic Anti-Shock Garment (NASG) for the management of obstetric hemorrhage, in Nigeria, India, Egypt, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. These studies include comparative projects in hospitals in Egypt and Nigeria, and randomized cluster trails at midwife-staffed primary health care centers in Zimbabwe and Zambia. Recent media attention to this life-saving device include an article in the New York Times, an interview on ABC television, and multiple press articles in WIRED magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle. The NASG has been selected as one of UNICEF/USAID/Every Mother Counts/PATH’s Ten Breakthrough Innovations to Save Mother’s Lives in 2015
Professor Millis is also contributing investigator to Continuum of Care for Post Partum Hemorrhage Project, a multi-phase community-to-facility maternal health project in Nigeria and India on which she collaborates with the NGO, Pathfinder.She is also co-PI, along with PIs from University of Illinois, Chicago, KNM Medical College, Belgaum, India, and Gynuity Helath Projects, NY, on a health delivery systems study of two approaches for using misoprostol to prevent postpartum hemorrhage at home deliveries in rural India. She is PI on the newly funded NIH study, “Beyond Repair,” an innovation studly to develop a tool to measure reintegration among women with fistula repairs who return to their communities.
Dr. Miller’s expertise is called upon for international technical consultations by bi-lateral organizations, such as WHO and UNICEF. She is on the Expert Panel on Induction and Augmentation of Labor, the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative’s (CMQCC) Hemorrhage Task Force, the Prevention of Post Partum Hemorrhage Initiative’s (POPPHI) First Interventions Task Force, and the WHO Partnership for Safe Mothers’, Newborns’, and Children’s Health, Effective Interventions Working Group. She was on the Technical Advisory Board of "No Woman, No Cry," the global documentary on maternal mortality, released in early 2010. She sits on the Safe Motherhood and Newborn Health Committee of the International Federation of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (FIGO), for whom she has recently co-authored guidelines on the management of second stage labor. She is currently FIGO representative to a collaborative between FIGO, ICM, WHO, and the White Ribbon Alliance on a global project, the “Mother Friendly Facility Initiative” which provides criteria for facilities to follow to protect the human rights and dignity of women during labor, childbirth, and post-partum.
She conducted the NIH-funded Randomized Control Trial of a Traditional Tibetan Medicine, Zhi Byed 11, vs. Misoprostol to prevent Postpartum Hemorrhage. Dr. Miller’s work in Tibet was not only the first RCT ever conducted there, but also included two years of ethnographic research and multiple publications, including some on the ethics of informed consent in research naïve populations.
Dr. Miller has published over 55 journal articles, including a paper she co-authored, with Dr. Vincanne Adams, UCSF Medical Anthropology, which won the Society of Medical Anthropology’s Polgar Prize (Challenge of Cross-Cultural Clinical Trials Research: Case Report from the Tibetan Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 19 (3): 267-89). She is co-author of the Hesperian Foundation's Book for Midwives, which was awarded the American College of Nurse Midwives’ Notable Book of the Year Award in 2006. She has recently completed writing, directing, and narrating a new training video for Pathfinder International, "Saving Mother's Lives: Community and Clinical Action to Address Post-Partum Hemorrhage." A new web-based toolkit for policy makers, clinicians, and trainers was recently launched on the NASG website: www.lifewraps.org.
Principal Investigator: Chirenje, MZ (Suellen Miller, Senior Advisor)
Principal Investigator: Suellen Miller
Title: Continuum of Care Model for Post Partum Hemorrhage: India and Nigeria
Key Funders: Pathfinder, InternationalPrincipal Investigator: Suellen Miller
Title: Two community strategies comparing use of misoprostol for early treatment/secondary prevention to primary prevention for postpartum hemorrhage: a randomized cluster non-inferiority study in Bijapur district, Karnataka, India.
Key Funders: Gynuity Health Project, Bill and Melinda Gates FoundationPrincipal Investigator: Suellen Miller
Title: Beyond Repair
Key Funder: NIH/NICHDPrincipal Investigator: Suellen Miller
Title: Introducing the NASG in Timor Lester, Implementation Research
Key Funder: John Snow, Inc. & USAIDPrincipal Investigator: Suellen Miller
Recent publication not indexed on PubMed:
Morris J, Meyer C, Fathalla MF, Youssif MM, Al-Hussaini TK, Camlin, C, Miller S<. Treating Uterine Atony with the NASG in Egypt. African Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health, 2011;5(1):37-42
Ojengbede O, Galadanci H, Morhason-Bello IO, Nsima D, Camlin C, Morris J, Butrick E, Meyer C, Mohammed AI, Miller S. The Non-pneumatic Anti-Shock Garment for Postpartum Haemorrhage in Nigeria. African Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health, 2011;5(3):135-9
Morris J, Stenson A, Theiss-Nyland K, Coelius R, Tudor C, Cuomu M, Miller S. Preventing Postpartum Hemorrhage: Comparing ZB11, a Traditional Tibetan Medicine, to Misoprostol. International Journal of Childbirth, 2011; 9(3):159-170
Stenson A, Lester F, Meyer C, Morris J, Vargas V, Miller S. The Non-pneumatic Anti-Shock Garment: How Applier Strength and Body Mass Index Affect External Abdominal Pressure. The Open Women’s Health Journal, 2011, 5:33-37.
For other publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Links
Assistant Professor Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Email: newmanns@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Sara Newmann received her undergraduate training from Wesleyan University, her medical training from Brown University and her Obstetrics and Gynecology residency training at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital at Harvard University. She received a MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health in maternal and child health and completed a Fellowship in Family Planning at UCSF. Sara is now assistant clinical professor in the San Francisco General Hospital Division of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at UCSF.
Her research focuses on cervical preparation for surgical abortion and on the integration of family planning into HIV care and treatment in Western Kenya. She is a recent recipient of the UCSF Center for AIDS Research HIV/AIDS Pilot Research award and the Hellman Family Award for Early Career Faculty. These awards will enable Sara to further her research in the area of gender relations, HIV, and family planning in western Kenya.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Updated February 2009
Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Medical Director, UCSF Family PACT Program Support and Evaluation; Office of Family Planning, California Department of Public Health, Sacramento
Email: michael.policar@ucsf.edu
Michael Policar, MD, MPH, currently serves as Associate Clinical Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine and as Medical Director of the Family PACT Program, the family planning and STI program of the California State Office of Family Planning.
Prior to February 2005, he was Vice President of Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer of the NorthBay Healthcare System in Fairfield, California. From 1994 through 1999, he was Medical Director of the Partnership HealthPlan of California, in Fairfield, California, which included over 50,000 Medicaid recipients of Solano and Napa counties. He is former Vice President for Medical Affairs of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. a position that he held between 1992-1994. Between 1983 and 1992, he concurrently served as Medical Director of the Women's Health Center at the San Francisco General Hospital and as Medical Director of Planned Parenthood of Alameda/San Francisco.
He received his MD degree at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine and completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the UCLA School of Medicine. Subsequently he received a Master of Public Health degree in Health Services Management from UCLA School of Public Health.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Medical Director, New Generation Health Center
Email: rainet@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Tina Raine-Bennett has been a faculty member in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at The University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine since 1998. She received her medical training at the University of California, San Diego and post-graduate residency training and MPH at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her current responsibilities include: 1) serving as Medical Director of the New Generation Health Center, a family planning and STD clinic for adolescents and young women, 2) conducting research on improving contraceptive use among adolescents and women at high risk for unintended pregnancy, and 3) providing resident and medical student education and supervision in Obstetrics and Gynecology at San Francisco General Hospital. Her research is focused on improving contraceptive use as a part of a comprehensive approach to reducing disparities in unintended pregnancy rates, particularly among adolescents and minority women. In addition she is also involved in clinical trials designed to determine ways to improve access to and utilization of emerging contraceptive methods.
Publications on PubMed
Updated January 2009
Professor, Departments of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences and Epidemiology & Biostatistics
Director, Cervical Dysplasia Clinic, San Francisco General Hospital
Email: sawayag@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Dr. Sawaya’s main research program involves all major aspects of cervical cancer screening including the optimal age to begin screening, age to end screening, screening periodicity and screening technologies. His methodological interest is in systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses of various topics in women’s health.
Dr. Sawaya’s initial studies in cervical cancer screening were completed with support from a four-year, NCI-sponsored Mentored Clinical Scientist Development Award focused on determining the risks and benefits of cervical cancer screening, specifically in older women. He determined the risk of false positive testing and risk factors for the development of cytological abnormalities in postmenopausal women. He collaborated with investigators at Kaiser Permanente’s Division of Research to determine reasons why women in a pre-paid health plan with easy access to cervical cancer screening develop cervical cancer. Under contract with CDC, he completed studies analyzing cervical cancer screening outcomes in over 1 million uninsured women in the United States to determine optimal screening strategies to inform program guidelines; the resulting publication led to cost-effectiveness analyses that had a direct impact on CDC program policies and influenced national guidelines. He expanded his studies to address the optimal age to begin screening by describing the potential effect of screening women under age 20 years on cancer incidence in the US. He recently completed a study involving over 2000 Zimbabwean women to determine the independent effect of latex diaphragm and lubricating gel provision on HPV infection, cytological abnormalities and cervical neoplasia. One study aim is to determine the natural history of HPV infection and the potential role of HPV in HIV seroconversion. He is co-investigator on a large, bi-national project to determine optimal treatment strategies among women with precancerous cervical lesions.
He has demonstrated his commitment to dissemination and implementation of research findings by serving as an invited expert to the CDC and the American Cancer Society. He is a former member of the US Preventive Services Task Force, a government supported panel of experts in prevention. As an internationally recognized expert in cervical cancer prevention, he is frequently asked to serve on grant review committees and write guest editorials for high-profile journals.
At UCSF, he is a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist and serves as the director of the San Francisco General Hospital Colposcopy Clinic, a high-volume inner-city clinic. In 2003, he was elected into the UCSF Academy of Medical Educators. He was the inaugral Director of the UCSF Pathways to Discovery Program in Clinical and Translational Research, a curricular initiative that encompasses all four UCSF Schools and includes students, residents and post-graduate trainees. He currently leads the Training Initiative for the UCSF Center for Healthcare Value.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Updated November 2013
Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Director for Communication, Development and External Relations, Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health
Email: speidelj@obgyn.ucsf.edu
J. Joseph Speidel, MD, MPH, joined UCSF’s Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health as a professor in 2003. Dr. Speidel is a cum laude graduate of Harvard College in chemistry and physics and a graduate of Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. Between 1995 and 2003, he directed the population grants program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation—a program that in 2002 provided $35 million for more than 200 active grants for population training, services, research, and advocacy. Between 1983 and 1995, Dr. Speidel served as vice president and president of Population Action International. Previously, Dr. Speidel served as chief of the Research Division and acting director of the Office of Population at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where he directed USAID's $125 million annual program of population and family planning assistance. He is a recipient of the Arthur S. Flemming Award for outstanding young men in government, the Carl S. Schulz Award of the American Public Health Association for significant contributions to international population work, the Family Planning Visionary Award of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, and the Allan Rosenfield Award for Lifetime Contributions to International Family Planning of the Society of Family Planning. Dr. Speidel recently served as founding co-chair and member of the board of the Funders Network on Population, Reproductive Health & Rights. He currently serves as chair of the board of directors of Population Connection, treasurer of the board of Provide and secretary of the board of Venture Strategies Innovations. He is the author of more that 100 articles and chapters and editor or author of 14 books and monographs on issues relating to family planning, contraception, and population.
Currently he serves as Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator on projects that are promoting use of long acting reversible contraception (LARC) in the U.S. through research and training, promoting increased investment in contraceptive research and development and studying population policy as it relates to food security and population-environment relationships.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed.
Updated December 2013
Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Co-director, Fellowship in Family Planning at UCSF
Research Director, Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Training Program in Abortion and Family Planning
Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinical Research, San Francisco General Hospital
Email: steinauerj@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Jody Steinauer, MD, MAS, is an Associate Clinical Professor in the Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences Department at UCSF. A graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz and UCSF’s School of Medicine, Jody also holds a Master’s Degree of Advanced Studies in Clinical Research at UCSF. After residency in OB/GYN at UCSF, she completed fellowships in both Women’s Health Clinical Research and Family Planning at UCSF. In addition to serving as the Co-director of the Family Planning Fellowship at UCSF she is the Director of OB/GYN Clinical Research at SFGH. She is currently studying the factors that contribute to abortion provision after residency, and the effect of family planning training in general. She is also studying methods to improve contraceptive compliance in patients, especially in patients at high risk of unintended pregnancy. As a medical student Jody founded Medical Students for Choice (MSFC), and she has continued to have a strong interest in policy through her work with MSFC and other organizations such as Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Updated January 2013
Professor Emerita, UCSF School of Nursing
Faculty, Primary Care Initiative, Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health Program (ANSIRH)
Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, UCSF
Email: diana.taylor@nursing.ucsf.edu
Diana Taylor, nurse practitioner, educator and researcher, is professor emerita in the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Department of Family Health Care Nursing and formerly the Director of UCSF's Women's Primary Care Program, the first women's health training program in California. Currently, she is the director of research for a statewide project to train and evaluate the safety of advanced practice clinicians in first trimester abortion care using a standardized curriculum with the goal to increase the number abortion providers and make professional and practice improvements to normalize abortion into women’s primary care. Dr. Taylor received her BSN from the University of Oregon, her MS from UCSF and PhD from the University of Washington.
As a researcher, Dr. Taylor has an established track record of multisite clinical intervention studies, federally funded demonstration-evaluation studies, and peer-reviewed publications. Her extensive research program has been directed at the effect of the menstrual cycle on women's health, testing non-drug treatments for stress-related illness in women, and more recently evaluating innovative strategies to expand abortion provision in the U.S. This recent work is highlighted in a policy-shaping publication to advance access to abortion services titled Providing Abortion Care: A Professional Toolkit for Nurse-Midwives, Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants with authors Taylor, Safriet, Dempsey, Kruse & Jackson ( www.apctoolkit.org , 2009).
Dr. Taylor has been at the forefront of developing the knowledge base in women’s health, especially the effect of the menstrual cycle on women’s health. Her books include Menstruation, Health and Illness (1992), and An Annual Review of Women’s Health Research (2001). In addition, Dr. Taylor has more than 100 scientific articles and publications in the area of women’s health and has co-authored a science-based consumer health book for women to assist them in managing symptoms and promoting their health (Taking Back the Month: How to Manage PMS and Enhance your Health (2002)). Recently, she has collaborated on practice-based scholarship and new practice models for unintended pregnancy prevention (Evidence to inform policy, practice and education for unintended pregnancy prevention and management, JOGNN 2011) as well as co-author of a technical report on policy options for advancing the reproductive health workforce (Nurse practitioners and sexual and reproductive health services: an analysis of supply and demand, RAND Health, 2012).
Other professional activities reflect her interdisciplinary endeavors on regional, national level and international levels. Specifically, in the development of innovative women's health care delivery models, interdisciplinary education programs, practice standards, and evidence-based practice guidelines, she has served on national boards and committees of the Health Professions Division of the US Public Health Service, the American Nurses Association, the National Organization of NP Faculties, the Association of Women's Health Nurses as well as state and local nursing practice and education committees. Dr. Taylor has also served in leadership roles on scientific panels for the IOM/NAS Board on Children & Families and the IOM Safety of Silicone Breast Implants Committee. Currently, Dr. Taylor is an active board member of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, the Reproductive Options Education Consortium, Nursing Students for Choice, and founding Board chair of the San Francisco Women’s Community Clinic.
Among her many rewards and honors for the advancement of clinical practice and research, Dr. Taylor has received the Loretta Ford Nurse Practitioner Advancement Award, the Achievement in Research Award from the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties, the Wisdom Keeper Award from the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research, the Women Making History Award from the SF Board of Supervisors and the Commission on the Status of Women, and the first Clinicians for Choice Leadership Award. Dr. Taylor has been awarded a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1996 for a residency at its Bellagio Center in Italy and she was inducted into the American Academy of Nursing in 1992 and serves on the Academy’s Women’s Health Expert Panel.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Updated November 2013
Associate Professor
Director, UCSF Family PACT Evaluation; Office of Family Planning, California Department of Health Care Services, Sacramento
Email: heike.thiel@dhcs.ca.gov
Heike Thiel de Bocanegra, PhD, MPH, is Associate Professor at the Bixby Center for Global Health, University of California, San Francisco. She has been the director of UCSF’s evaluation of California’s Family PACT (Planning, Access, Care, and Treatment) Program since 2005. Family PACT is administered by the California Department of Health Care Services, Office of Family Planning. Heike is principal investigator of a medical chart review of the quality of family planning services among primary care providers and the evaluation of the Bedsider website to remind women of their family planning appointment and contraceptive refill. Prior to moving to California, Heike conducted applied health service research projects and program evaluation with a focus on immigrants, refugees and victims of crime, trauma, and violence in New York. Internationally, she oversaw program implementation, evaluation and policy work in Peru, where she also lived for seven years, Kosovo, Vietnam, South Africa, and Mexico. Heike obtained her MA in psychology from the University of Bielefeld, Germany, her MPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her doctoral degree in public health from New York University. Her doctoral dissertation explored predictors of breastfeeding among immigrant women in New York City.
Updated December 2013
Assistant Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health
Center for AIDS Prevention Studies
Email: janet.turan@ucsf.edu
Dr. Janet Turan’s main research interests are in the topic area of maternal health in low-resource settings of both developing and developed countries. Over the course of her research career, she has used both quantitative and qualitative research methods to examine factors related to the promotion of maternal health in diverse settings including Turkey, Jordan, Italy, Eritrea, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Egypt. She is currently conducting research aiming to reduce the adverse effects of HIV/AIDS on the physical and mental health of pregnant and childbearing women in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as research on the prevention of maternal mortality and morbidity due to obstetric hemorrhage. In addition, her current research program includes the study of stigma as it relates to a variety of reproductive health conditions/services, including induced abortion, obstetric fistula, HIV/AIDS, and gender-based violence.
Title: Effects of HIV/AIDS Stigma on Use of Services by Pregnant Women in Kenya
Key Funder(s): NIH/NIMH
Major Project Goal: To examine the effects of HIV/AIDS stigma perceived and experienced by pregnant women in rural Kenya and to use the knowledge gained to design interventions for reduction of HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination related to the use of essential maternity and HIV services.
Principal Investigator: Janet Turan
Title: Formative Research for the Adaptation of an Intervention for HIV/AIDS Service Providers on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) In Rural Western Kenya
Key Funder(s): Center For AIDS Research (CFAR) Pilot Awards
Major Project Goal: To gain in-depth understanding of gender-based violence experienced by pregnant women in rural Nyanza Province using qualitative research methods and to use this knowledge to adapt and pilot a GBV intervention for health workers.
Principal Investigator: Janet Turan
Title: Enhancement of clinical research and data analysis skills for the analysis of the effects of women’s HIV/AIDS knowledge, attitudes and testing status on their infant feeding intentions and practices
Key Funder(s): Center For AIDS Research (CFAR) International Mentored Scientist Awards
Major Project Goal: To enhance Dr. Maricianah Onono's clinical research expertise, including analytical and scientific writing skills in order to examine the effects of HIV/AIDS knowledge, attitudes and testing status on infant feeding intentions and actual postnatal practices in a cohort of pregnant women in Nyanza Province, Kenya.
Principal Investigator: Janet Turan
Title: Integration of HIV Care and Treatment into MCH Services in Migori District
Key Funder(s): CDC/PEPFAR Public Health Evaluation (PHE)
Major Project Goal: To determine the most effective way to reach and provide pregnant women with accessible, comprehensive, and high quality HIV care and treatment using a prospective cluster randomized design.
Principal Investigator: Craig Cohen
Title: Western Kenya Enrollment Intervention Study
Key Funder(s): Vestergaard Frandsen
Major Project Goal: To use a mixed-methods study design to follow-up individuals who had tested positive during a community-based HIV testing campaign in Western Kenya, in order to identify the factors that inhibit and enable linkage to care following an HIV-positive diagnosis.
Principal Investigator: Craig Cohen
Title: Non-pneumatic Anti-Shock Garment (NASG) for Obstetrical Hemorrhage
Key Funder(s): NIH/NICHD
Major Project Goal: To learn whether early application of the NASG at the Satellite Health Facility (SHF) level before transport to a Referral Hospital (RH) will decrease maternal mortality and morbidity from obstetric hemorrhage in Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Principal Investigator: Suellen Miller
Assistant Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Medical Director of Obstetrics, San Francisco General Hospital
Email: vargasj@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Juan E. Vargas, MD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at the UCSF School of Medicine and Medical Director of Obstetrics at San Francisco General Hospital. He has a joint appointment in the department of Radiology at UCSF. Dr. Vargas is a senior medical staff at the Prenatal Diagnosis Center at UCSF Medical Center.
Dr. Vargas received his medical degree from the University of Chile. He is board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology and received his training at the Universidad Catolica de Chile and later at UCSF. He also trained in medical genetics at Children’s Hospital, Boston. He has served on the medical faculties at Universidad Catolica de Chile and UCSF.
Dr. Vargas is the author of over 30 scientific papers, scholarly reviews, and book chapters on obstetrics and reproductive genetics. He currently participates in 6 clinical trials involving pregnant women, 5 of which are NIH funded. Dr. Vargas has served as an expert consultant on issues related to maternal exposures during pregnancy and perinatal outcomes for Federal, State, and City and County agencies. He has served as a visiting professor in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Chile. He is a reviewer for the Journal of, Obstetrics and Gynecology, The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health, International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia, and the Journal of Reproductive Medicine. Dr. Vargas has received numerous awards for his contributions in medical student and residency education.
Clinical Interests:
Research Interests:
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Updated November 2013
Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Director, Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH)
Email: weitzt@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Tracy Weitz, PhD, MPA, is the Director of the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) program and Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences, both at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). ANSIRH's mission is to ensure that reproductive health care and policy are grounded in evidence. Dr. Weitz has a master's degree in public administration with an emphasis in health care from Missouri Southern University and a doctoral degree in medical sociology from UCSF.
Dr. Weitz's passion is for those aspects of women's health which are marginalized either for ideological reasons, or because the populations affected lack the means or mechanisms to have their concerns raised. Her current research focuses on innovative strategies to expand abortion provision in the U.S. Included in her research portfolio is a demonstration project of the use of nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and physician assistants as providers of abortion care in California, several studies of abortion regulation, and a national strategic plan to secure access to later abortion care.
In 1999 Dr. Weitz received the UCSF Chancellor's Award for the Advancement of Women. In 2006, Dr. Weitz was appointed by Governor Schwartzenegger to the Women's Health Council, an advisory body to the California Department of Health Services. In 2008 she received the Felicia Stewart award from the Population, Family Planning and Reproductive Health section of the American Public Health Association. In 2012, she was awarded the Academic Sentate Distinction in Mentoring Award. Dr. Weitz serves on the board of the the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California, Breast Cancer Action, and the Society of Family Planning.
For a complete list of publications, please click here: Publications on PubMed
Updated May 2012