SPEAKERS
Kathleen Anne Boyd
BA, MSc, PgCAP, PhD
Professor in Health Economics | Director of Research School Health & Wellbeing
Health Economics & Health Technology Assessment
School of Health & Wellbeing, University of Glasgow | Scotland, UK
Kathleen is a Professor in the Health Economics for Health Technology Assessment (HEHTA) group, and Director of Research for the School of Health & Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow. She leads the Economic Evaluation alongside Clinical Trials theme for HEHTA, collaborating throughout the UK and internationally on health care research projects, leading the economic components regarding trial design, economic evaluations alongside clinical trials, incorporating modelling and economic analyses of complex and public health interventions. Her research spans a wide range of clinical and health care areas including smoking cessation, oncology, obstetrics, early years interventions, mental health and different types of health technologies including pharmacological treatments, medical devices, diagnostic tests and public health and social care interventions. Kathleen is a lead Health Economics Reviewer for the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC), reviewing and presenting to the SMC New Drugs Committee, which directly informs decision making policy in Scotland.
Kala Frye Bourque
Research Instructor George Washington University Department of Pediatrics, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, ISPID
Washington | DC, USA
Kathleen is Kala Frye Bourque is currently a Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellow at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC, USA. She received her B.S. in Neuroscience and Behavior from the University of New Hampshire, and an MD from Central Michigan University College of Medicine before completing her pediatrics residency at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore, MD in 2022. Her career in research and advocacy has focused on infant safe sleep practices and improving access to resources for families in both rural and urban under-resourced areas. Her most recent grant and area of interest has been researching ways to reach families with safe sleep supplies through the emergency department as a means to over come a decrease in primary care during the COVID pandemic. Dr. Frye Bourque works closely with the AAP and both local and national governments in Washington DC to advocate for consumer safety with the CPSC and improve outreach to the community in regards to infant mortality
Richard Goldstein
MD
Director, Robert’s Program on Sudden Unexpected Death in Pediatrics, Boston Children’s Hospital
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
Boston | Massachusetts, USA
Dr. Richard Goldstein is the director of Robert’s Program on Sudden Unexpected Death in Pediatrics (SUDP) at Boston Children’s Hospital, providing direct care to families and conducting research on sudden unexplained deaths that occur in seemingly healthy infants and children. He investigates SUDP as a heterogeneous disorder and explores its etiologies using an “undiagnosed diseases” approach that incorporates enhanced phenotyping and genetic analysis. He also studies how families cope in the aftermath of such deaths, especially the impact of child loss and grief. He is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
Fern R Hauck
MD, MS
Spencer P. Bass MD Twenty-First Century Professor of Family Medicine
Professor of Public Health Sciences Department of Family Medicine University of Virginia Charlottesville | Virginia USA
Fern R. Hauck is currently the Spencer P. Bass, MD, Twenty-First Century Professor of Family Medicine and Professor of public health sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. She is also the director of the International Family Medicine Clinic at UVA.
Dr. Hauck’s primary research focuses on sudden unexpected infant death, including sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). She has studied risk factors for SIDS and other unexpected infant deaths, especially focusing on African-American and other minority communities. She has also studied bedsharing practices cross culturally and preventive strategies, such as pacifier use. An important theme of Dr. Hauck’s research is eliminating disparities in health services and outcomes. She is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on SIDS and is an advisor to several other organizations and federal agencies that focus on infant health and safety. Her other professional passion is global health and caring for refugees. She started the International Family Medicine Clinic in 2002, which serves the refugee population of Charlottesville. Dr. Hauck enjoys many hobbies including travel, gardening, reading, theater and music. Most of all, she enjoys spending time with her family.
Rosemary SC Horne
PhD, DSc
NHMRC Leadership Fellow and Senior Principal Research Fellow, Department of Paediatrics, Monash University, Melbourne | Australia
Professor Rosemary Horne holds a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Investigator Fellowship and is a Senior Principal Research Fellow in the Department of Paediatrics at Monash University. Her research interests focus on numerous aspects of physiology during sleep in infants and children. Rosemary has published more than 200 scientific research and review articles. She is Chair of the Physiology working group of the International Society for the Study and Prevention of Perinatal and Infant Death and an executive board member of the International Pediatric Sleep Association. She is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Sleep Research, Sleep and Sleep Medicine.
Rita Machaalani
PhD, Associate Professor
SIDS & Sleep Apnea Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney
Sleep Unit, The Childrens’ Hospital at Westmead
NSW | Australia
Rita started her career in SIDS at the University of Sydney in 2000, focusing on the Neuropathology of SIDS. She developed a large dataset of brain tissue from SIDS infants which has been the basis of her laboratory’s study. They have looked at various brain markers including those identifying cell death and important neurotransmitters that regulate sleep, arousal, respiration and cardiac activity. Simultaneously, they developed piglet models of the main risk factors of prone sleeping and cigarette smoke exposure, with the aim of teasing out the mechanism via which each exposure induces brain changes. She has overseen the completion of 25+ postgraduate degrees, and currently has 3 postgraduate students continuing these various aspects of research within the SIDS and piglet models.
Margaret Parker
Dr. Parker is a Professor of Pediatrics and Academic Chief of Neonatology at UMass Memorial Medical Center. Dr. Parker is a neonatal health services researcher and holds several federal and foundation grants in the area of social disparities in preterm birth outcomes; she has a particular interest in safe sleep and breastfeeding. Dr. Parker is also an expert in multi-site implementation science and is the Co-Chair of the Neonatal Quality Improvement Collaborative of Massachusetts and an Improvement Advisor from the Institute of Healthcare Improvement. She has led multi-site NICU quality improvements focused on breastfeeding and family engagement. Dr. Parker applies a health equity lens to her local and multi-site quality improvement projects and is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee of Fetus and Newborn.
Erin M. Mannen
Assistant Professor, Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho | USA
Dr. Erin M. Mannen is an Assistant Professor and serves as the Director of the Boise Applied Biomechanics of Infants (BABI) Lab in the Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering at Boise State University in Idaho, U.S.A.. She earned her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Kansas, completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Center for Orthopaedic Biomechanics at the University of Denver, and began her faculty career in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Dr. Mannen’s BABI Lab team uses in vivo human motion experimental techniques to study how babies move and use their muscles in common positions and commercial products to understand the impacts on suffocation-related safety and musculoskeletal development. Her passion for baby biomechanics was inspired by her own children, Jay (8) and Lucy (6). In her free time, Dr. Mannen enjoys the great Idaho outdoors with her husband Drew and kids.
Sharyn Parks Brown
Commander, PhD, MPH
United States Public Health Service
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Atlanta, Georgia | USA
Commander Sharyn Parks Brown is an Epidemiologist and Senior Scientist in CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health where she specializes in mortality surveillance, perinatal care quality improvement, preterm birth, and other topics related to maternal and infant Health. Prior to becoming senior scientist, she spent 9 years developing her subject area expertise in SIDS/SUDI as the Senior Epidemiologist and Data Manager for the division’s Sudden Unexpected Infant Death and Sudden Death in the Young case registry. Dr. Parks has also previously held positions with CDC’s Division of Violence prevention where she focused on violent death and child maltreatment surveillance and with maternal and child health office at the Texas’ Department of State Health Services. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology, a Master’s in Epidemiology from Saint Louis University School of Public Health, and a PhD in Psychiatric Epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.
Kyran Quinlan
MD, MPH
Pediatric Medical Advisor to the Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Chicago, Illinois | USA
Pediatric Medical Advisor to the Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health. For over three decades, Dr. Quinlan was an academic general pediatrician, researcher and advocate. He was on faculty at the University of Chicago for many years and most recently at Rush University Medical Center where he was a Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Division of General Pediatrics. He did his residency training in Pediatrics at the University of Chicago. He completed the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. He serves on Child Death Review for Cook County, Illinois (USA) and was the Principal Investigator for the CDC-funded Sudden Unexpected Infant Death-Case Registry for Cook County, IL.
Claudia Ravaldi
MD, MSc, PhD
Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist
PeaRL – Perinatal Research Laboratory, University of Florence
Department of Neurosciences, Psychology, Drug Research and Child Health
CiaoLapo Foundation for Perinatal Health, Florence | Italy
Claudia Ravaldi is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist with a special interest in perinatal mental health and bereavement care after pregnancy and infant loss. She is the founder and director of CiaoLapo, a charity organisation that promotes perinatal health and research in Italy. She has a wide range of qualifications in different fields, such as cognitive behavioural therapy, EMDR, mindfulness, affective neuroscience, perinatal clinical psychology, and narrative languages. For her work on stillbirth advocacy, research and support she was also elected as an Ashoka Fellow, an international recognition for social entrepreneurs who offer innovative solutions for contemporary problems.
Russell Scott Ray
Ph.D.
Associate Professor and McNair Scholar at Baylor College of Medicine
Houston Texas | United States of America
The Ray lab is a hybrid neuroscience and bioengineering lab that studies life sustaining autonomic circuits and their role in SUID/SIDS. Work in the lab utilizes robotics and advanced software to gain insight into possible SIDS mechanisms. Using a panel of unique closed loop automated robotic platforms for neonate cardio-respiratory measurements, the Ray lab is carrying out a broad-based physiology screen to identify both genetic and environmental influences that play a role in brain development and SIDS. Already having identified unique factors in SIDS etiology, the lab is now moving toward leveraging these robotic platforms to screen for small molecules that can protect or restore cardio-respiratory function in SIDS models with the ultimate goal of identifying candidates for future diagnostic and therapeutic interventions.
George Richerson
MD, PhD
Department of Neurology, University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa |United States
George Richerson is Professor & Chairman of Neurology, and The Roy J. Carver Chair in Neuroscience at the University of Iowa. He received a BS in Aerospace Engineering from Iowa State University, and an MD and a PhD in Physiology & Biophysics from the University of Iowa. He trained in Adult Neurology at Yale University where he remained on the faculty for 19 years. Dr. Richerson studies the role of serotonin neurons in cardiorespiratory control in mice and in epilepsy patients, and how their dysfunction may contribute to the pathophysiology of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) and SIDS. Dr Richerson is a PI in the Center for SUDEP Research of the NINDS/NIH.
Trina C. Salm Ward
PhD, MSW
Associate Professor Social Work
Helen Bader School of Social Welfare
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Milwaukee, Wisconsin | USA
Dr. Salm Ward is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Wisconsin, USA. Dr. Salm Ward’s research focuses primarily on reducing risk for sleep-related infant deaths. She has conducted quantitative, qualitative, and mixed method studies to examine the social and environmental context of infant sleep and parental decision-making about infant sleep practices, with specific attention to examining the role of social determinants of health. She has designed and evaluated educational risk reduction interventions. Dr. Salm Ward has over 20 years of experience engaging with disadvantaged communities and is also a licensed social worker.
Stacy Scott
Ph.D., MPA, GCSJ
Founder: Global Infant Safe Sleep Center
Vice President, Department of Health Equity Innovation, National Institute for Children’s Health Quality
Executive Director, Baby 1st Network
United States – Ohio
A Toledo, Ohio native, Stacy Scott, Ph.D., MPA, Executive Director, Baby 1st Network, and founder of the Global Infant Safe Sleep Center, is a 30-year public health advocate and infant safe sleep expert who’s worked from the government agency level to ground zero spearheading numerous community outreach programs nationwide to end health disparities and reduce the risk of sudden unexpected infant deaths. Scott serves as the executive director for Baby 1st Network. In July 2018, Scott was elected to co-chair the Ohio Collaborative to Prevent Infant Mortality (OCPIM), a statewide partnership formed to eliminate infant mortality and advocate for equity in birth outcomes. She has worked collaboratively with the fraternity’s Health and Wellness Committee and sub-committees sponsoring activities in every country region. She founded the Global Infant Safe Sleep (GISS) Center in 2016. In January 2018, Scott was appointed chairman of the Wisdom Council of the National Action Partnership to Promote Safe Sleep serving as faculty for the National Institute for Children’s Health Quality (NICHQ). Scott is a member International Society for the Study and Prevention of Perinatal and Infant Death. She received her undergraduate degree from Spelman College, a master’s degree in public administration, a doctoral degree in Urban Higher Education and a graduate certificate in Social Justice.
Darren Tanner
Senior Applied Research Scientist, AI for Good and AI for Health, Microsoft Corporation. Redmond, Washington, USA.
Darren Tanner is a senior research scientist with AI for Health in the AI for Good Research Lab at Microsoft. Since joining the AI for Good and AI for Health group, Dr. Tanner has used AI and statistical methods to solve problems in a number of domains, including environmental conservation, digital safety, and detection of digital corruption. Most recently he has developed a focus on public health, which includes research on infant health and cardiovascular risk. Prior to joining Microsoft, Dr. Tanner completed his doctoral and postdoctoral work in cognitive science with a focus on the neuroscience of language, and he served on the faculties of Linguistics, Psychology, and Neuroscience and was a principal investigator at the University of Illinois
John Thompson
1 Jan 2013 – present Associate Professor, University of Auckland, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Auckland, New Zealand 1 Jun 2019 – present Honorary Professor University of Bristol, England 1 Jun 2020 – present Honorary Professor University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia
Jeanine Young
PhD, BSc(Hons-1st class) Nursing, Adv. Diploma of Nursing Care, RGN, Reg Midwife, Neonatal Nurse (ENB 405 Special and Intensive Care of the Newborn)
Professor Jeanine Young is a registered nurse, midwife, and neonatal nurse. Jeanine has a special interest in the development of community based, wrap around care interventions to support families with social vulnerabilities who experience the greatest burden of infant mortality. Jeanine works in partnership with communities, government, industry, and safety and regulatory bodies, in translating evidence into practical parenting advice.
Jeanine is the Australian lead for the Pēpi-Pod® Program in collaboration with Change for our Children New Zealand. In 2022 this program was associated with infant mortality reductions in Queensland. She is also co-clinical lead for the 2022 Qld Health Safer Infant Sleep Clinical Guideline which embedded a risk minimisation approach into service delivery. Jeanine was awarded Member of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2020 for her significant contributions to medical research in infant mortality prevention, tertiary education and nursing.
Alfredo Vannacci
His research interests include Pharmacovigilance and Pharmacoepidemiology, especially in the fields of Neuropsychiatry and Perinatal Health, as well as the efficacy and safety of herbal medicine and natural substances. He is the founder and director of the Perinatal Research Laboratory (PEaRL) of Florence University, which is a joint initiative of the Department of Neurosciences, Psychology, Drug Research and Child Health and CiaoLapo Foundation for Perinatal Health.
He leads the scientific activities of CiaoLapo, a non-profit association that provides psychological support and assistance to families who experience perinatal loss, and promotes research and training in perinatal medicine. CiaoLapo Foundation for Perinatal Health is the reference point in Italy for the involvement of stakeholders (especially parents affected by perinatal loss and perinatal health professionals) in research and training in perinatal medicine. He coordinates several research projects on topics such as COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy and breastfeeding, depression and anxiety in pregnancy and postpartum, bereavement care after perinatal loss, and continuity of care during the COVID-19 pandemic. He has published more than 200 scientific papers and books, and he has participated in several national and international research projects. He is also the scientific director of Scarab Lab, a joint laboratory of Technological Solutions for Clinical Pharmacology, Pharmacovigilance and Bioinformatics, as well as the Chief Scientific Officer of Dynamedics, a spin-off company of the University of Florence that provides consulting, design and project management of advanced informatics solutions for healthcare.