MCHRI Seminar Series

The MCHRI Seminar Series highlights compelling clinical topics, innovative research, and the latest developments in maternal and child health, and serves as a forum for engaging in conversations with other researchers and scientists across the community. 

Students, faculty, and postdoctoral researchers are encouraged to attend the seminars. Seminars are typically from 12:00pm-1:00pm online via Zoom.

Upcoming 2025 Seminars

Past Seminars

Thursday, January 30, 2025, 12pm-1pm

Scalable Strategies for Improving Diet and Mitigating Climate Change

Every year, 500,000 Americans die from preventable diseases caused in part by unhealthy diets. And every year, food production accounts for up to one-third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Join this MCHRI seminar to learn about how policy changes and other scalable interventions could make our diets healthier and our food systems more sustainable.

This talk will provide evidence about whether interventions like warning labels and point-of-purchase swap recommendations can encourage healthier diets and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with food production.

Speakers:
Anna Grummon, PhD, MSPH, Principal Investigator, Stanford Food Policy Lab; Assistant Professor, Pediatrics and, by courtesy, Health Policy

Amanda Zeitlin, MPH, Project Coordinator, Stanford Food Policy Lab; Social Science Research Professional, Pediatrics

Monday, February 10, 2025, 12pm-1pm

MCHRI Team Science and Translational Medicine Program: Prioritizing Diverse Collaboration to Accelerate Innovation

Join this MCHRI seminar to learn about our inaugural Team Science and Translational Medicine Faculty Development Program, which uniquely supports teams with diverse subject-matter expertise, led by a junior faculty member, in collaboratively accelerating an innovative vertical. We will share our curriculum, intentionally designed to support the varied needs of a rapidly-accelerating project, and our vision for the growth of the program. We will also highlight the work of Juliet Knowles and the advancements she has been able to make in her project advancing the treatment of synaptopathies since participating in the February 2024 program.

Speakers:
Grant Wells, MS, Director of Innovation & Development, Stanford MCHRI

Juliet Knowles, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences and of Pediatrics

Wednesday, March 26, 2025, 12pm-1pm

Interventions for Obesity: From Pharmacological Peptides to Community Programs

Join this MCHRI seminar to learn about new research into peptide therapeutics for obesity as well as community based social and behavioral interventions for preventing and treating childhood obesity.

Speakers:
Katrin Svensson, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pathology

Thomas Robinson, MD, MPH, Irving Schulman, MD Endowed Professor in Child Health, Professor of Pediatrics and of Medicine and, by courtesy, of Epidemiology & Population Health

Monday, April 14, 2025, 12pm-1pm
Online via Zoom

Biodesign Faculty Fellows: Designing Innovations to Improve Health and Health Care

The Stanford Maternal and Child Health Research Institute annually sponsor Stanford Mussallem Center for Biodesign Faculty Fellowships to spur innovations in maternal and child health, offering faculty the opportunity to apply their knowledge to advance care delivered through Stanford Medicine Children’s Health. MCHRI has historically funded 29 fellows. Over approximately 8 months, the program leads participants through our rigorous approach for identifying important innovation opportunities within or outside their departments, inventing cost-effective solutions, and—importantly—preparing to implement those inventions to improve patient care.

At this talk, learn about the education and training opportunities offered through Biodesign, hear from Faculty Fellow alumni as they present rapid pitches of their projects and provide updates on their ongoing work designed to address health technology challenges and needs.

Speakers:

Kathleen Kan, MD, Assistant Professor, Urology
Project Title: Voiding dysfunction and bedwetting

Matthew Muffly, MD, Clinical Associate Professor, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine
Project Title: TBD

Meera N. Sankar, MD, Clinical Professor, Pediatrics (Neonatology)
Project Title: FeedBridge: A digital solution to support newborn feeding

Monday, May 12, 2025, 12pm-1pm
Online via Zoom

Systemic Immune Dysregulation Induced by Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy Persists Years After Delivery

Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP), either preeclampsia of gestational hypertension, significantly increase the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) later in life. Using single-cell mass cytometry, the systemic immune system was analyzed across three time points: during pregnancy (antepartum), during the postpartum period (5-61 weeks post-pregnancy), and >2 years since last delivery (midlife). A multivariable sparse machine learning method with artificial noise injection and data-driven feature selection was utilized to identify HDP-associated immune signatures, highlighting that HDP-associated immune dysregulation persists long after pregnancy, potentially contributing to long-term maternal CVD risk.

Speakers:

Maximilian Sabayev, MS, ICME PhD candidate

Dorien Feyaerts, PhD, Instructor

Brice Gaudilliere, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine and, by courtesy, of Pediatrics

Thursday, June 19, 2025, 12pm-1pm

Clinical and Health Services Physician Scientist Trainee to Faculty Career Development

Hear from current faculty at Stanford who have successfully obtained MCHRI funding to pursue a physician scientist career track. Learn how to make the most of MCHRI's funding opportunities, identify mentors, and learn more about other campus offerings to further your career!

Speakers:

Yair Bannett, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics (Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics)

Preeti Panda, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine (Pediatrics)

Daniel Tawfik, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics (Critical Care)