Kathryn Fay, MD MSc
Dr. Kathryn Fay is faculty at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, both in the Division of Family Planning and the Division of General Obstetrics and Gynecology Specialists; she is also an instructor at Harvard Medical School. Her award proposal is titled “Development of a validated reproductive coercion scale and survivor-identified clinical interventions.”
Description: Intimate partner reproductive coercion involves behaviors that interfere with a partner’s sexual and reproductive health. Examples include nonconsensual condom removal, destruction of contraception, and pressure to continue or end a pregnancy. This work has two tangible products: a validated scale to optimally identify those affected by reproductive coercion and a repository of patient-centered clinical support tools to aid survivors in achieving their sexual and reproductive health goals.
Lydia Shook, MD
Dr. Lydia Shook is a Maternal-Fetal Medicine subspecialist and faculty member of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and an Investigator at the Vincent Center for Reproductive Biology. Her award proposal is titled: “SARS-CoV-2 infection and immune activation during pregnancy: exploring implications for long-term offspring health.”
Description: Many infections and non-infectious exposures during pregnancy can induce immune activation at the maternal-fetal interface, which increases offspring risk for disease later in life. This project focuses on characterizing the fetoplacental signature of SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy. The purpose of this work is to identify biomarkers of disease risk in the fetus/newborn born to individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy, to ultimately guide the development of targeted, personalized interventions and improve the health of the next generation.