Maternal-Fetal Medicine Faculty

The professional activities of the faculty of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine are summarized below.

Division Chief

Alan M. Peaceman, MD, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is Chief of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine. Dr. Peaceman came to Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in 1989 after completing fellowship training in Maternal-Fetal Medicine at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston. He serves as a subspecialty board examiner for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and is a member of the board of directors of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. Dr. Peaceman's research interests have included placental prostanoid metabolism in normal and abnormal pregnancies, recurrent pregnancy loss, prediction of preterm birth, management of abnormal labor, and obesity and pregnancy.

He is the principal investigator on the NICHD Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units Network grant, which currently has four active clinical research protocols investigating fetal monitoring, gestational diabetes, preeeclampsia prevention, and cerebral palsy reduction. Dr. Peaceman served as Chair of the Research Committee at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and was the founder and director of the Perinatal Outcomes Research Group, a multidisciplinary research team formed to perform health services research related to obstetric topics. His clinical interests include multiple gestation and maternal immunologic disorders.

Faculty

Ann E.B. Borders, MD, MSC is an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University. She joined the faculty in 2006 after completing a three-year fellowship in Maternal-Fetal Medicine at Northwestern University and a postdoctoral fellowship in Health Services Research at the Institute for Healthcare Studies at Northwestern. She is a graduate of Iowa State University and Harvard Medical School. She completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology in Boston at the combined Brigham and Women’s Hospital / Massachusetts’s General Hospital program. She also completed a Masters in Health Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her clinical and research interests include investigating determinants of adverse pregnancy outcomes in vulnerable populations of women. Specifically her research aim is to better understand adverse pregnancy outcomes associated with chronic maternal stress.

Sharon L. Dooley, MD, MPH,Albert B. Gerbie Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, has been working in Maternal-Fetal Medicine at Northwestern University since 1980. She served as the director of the residency program for eleven years and is now the Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Dooley has assumed highly visible leadership roles through her work with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the ACGME Residency Review Committee for Obstetrics and Gynecology. She has also served on the editorial board of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Dooley’s primary research interests are perinatal epidemiology and carbohydrate metabolism in pregnancy. She is currently the local principal investigator for the international HAPO Study, investigating gestational diabetes.

Patricia M. Garcia, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, joined the faculty at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in 1992 after being awarded an American Gynecologic and Obstetric Society fellowship to study the molecular virology of perinatal HIV-1 transmission. Obstetric infectious diseases in general and perinatal HIV transmission in particular have been the focus of her research and clinical interests. She is an active investigator in the area of reproductive health and HIV infection and serves as the principal investigator for two on-going NIH/CDC-funded national, multi-center studies (WIHS, and MIRIAD). Dr. Garcia is founder and director of the Women’s HIV Program and the Perinatal HIV Program at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which cares for approximately 300 HIV-infected women.

She serves on the national scientific advisory committee for the Antiretroviral Pregnancy Registry as well as many national working groups and committees for the NIH, including the Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group, the Women's Interagency HIV Study, and the Mother and Infant Rapid Intervention at Delivery Study. Dr. Garcia was recently named the executive director of the Chicago Pediatric AIDS Prevention Initiative, a five-year public health project aimed at eliminating pediatric AIDS in the city of Chicago. For her work with HIV-infected women in the city of Chicago, Dr. Garcia recently received the Jonas Salk Health Leadership Award from the local chapter of the March of Dimes. Dr. Garcia is also the Director of Undergraduate Medical Education for the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University.

Susan E. Gerber, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, joined the faculty at Northwestern University in 2001, after completing a three-year fellowship in Maternal-Fetal Medicine at Northwestern University and a postdoctoral fellowship in Health Services Research at the Institute for Healthcare Studies at Northwestern. She is a graduate of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Columbia University School of Public Health in New York City. She completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Dr. Gerber’s clinical and research interests include perinatal health policy as well as the measurement and determinants of maternal quality of life. Dr. Gerber is also the Associate Director of Graduate Medical Education in the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

William A. Grobman, MD, MBA, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is the director of the Maternal-Fetal Medicine fellowship program. He completed his residency and fellowship at Northwestern University and joined the faculty in 2000. During his fellowship, he also completed a master's of management at the Kellogg School of Management, where he learned techniques of decision analysis, multivariate statistics, and cost-effectiveness analysis. Dr. Grobman has used these tools to publish on cost-effectiveness of VBAC versus elective repeat cesarean delivery and of rapid intrapartum HIV screening. His research interests also include analysis of health policy and the dynamics of patient and physician decision-making.

Ongoing research projects include an assessment of knowledge and risk aversion regarding multiple gestations among couples with infertility, evaluation of patient utility valuations regarding prenatal diagnosis, the cost-effectiveness of rapid fetal fibronectin testing and labor induction, and the interaction of stressful life events and health literacy upon prenatal care and health outcomes. Dr. Grobman is also affiliated with the Northwestern Institute of Healthcare Studies. Dr. Grobman’s clinical interests include diagnostic ultrasound and medical complications of pregnancy.

Svena D. Julien, MD, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, joined the faculty in 2005 after completing her residency at Temple University Hospital and her fellowship at Yale University School of Medicine. She is a graduate of Jefferson Medical College of the Thomas Jefferson University and Saint Joseph’s University. Dr. Julien’s clinical interests include prenatal diagnosis of congenital anomalies, diagnosis and management of preeclampsia, and intrauterine growth restriction.

LaTasha Nelson, MD, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, joined the faculty in 2008 after completing her residency at Tulane University School of Medicine and her fellowship at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine. She is a graduate of the University of Tennessee, College of Medicine, in Memphis, TN. Dr Nelson received the Northwestern University Young Investigators award in 2007 for her Clinical Research Forum in Genetics. Dr Nelson's clinical interests include prenatal diagnosis of congenital anomalies, diagnosis and management of diabetes in pregnancy and hypertension.

Priya V. Rajan, MD, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, joined the Northwestern Faculty in 2010. Dr. Rajan received her Doctor of Medicine from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She completed her residency training in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center, in Orange, California. After residency training, Dr. Rajan completed a three-year fellowship in Maternal-Fetal Medicine at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center.

Dr. Rajan’s research interests include the impact of physical activity on pregnancy outcomes, fetal ultrasound, and medical complications of pregnancy. Dr. Rajan is a member of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (Communications Committee member), the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Institute for Ultrasound Medicine.

Michael L. Socol, MD, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is Vice Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Chief of Obstetrics at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Dr. Socol served as Chief of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine from 1987 to 2003. He is a past president of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and is director of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He has served as chair of the Clinical Document Review Panel for Obstetrics for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Dr. Socol has more than 100 peer-reviewed publications to his credit, and his primary research and clinical interests have been in the areas of prematurity, blood group isoimmunization, and the management of labor.

Emily J. Su, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, joined the faculty at Northwestern University in 2007. During her three-year Maternal-Fetal Medicine fellowship, Dr. Su also received her master’s degree in clinical investigation through Northwestern University’s Graduate School. She is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Illinois College of Medicine, and she completed her residency and fellowship training at Northwestern University. Upon completion of her fellowship, she was awarded the American Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Foundation/Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Scholarship Award to continue pursuing her research interest in regulation and dysfunction of placental blood vessel function associated with pregnancy-related diseases such as preeclampsia and intrauterine growth restriction.

Ralph K. Tamura, MD, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is a physican in the Diagnostic Ultrasound Division. Dr. Tamura has been in the area of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at Northwestern since 1980, and has been the Division Chief of Diagnostic Ultrasound for the past seven years. In this capacity he directs three ultrasound locations and performs approximately 500 amniocentesis procedures per year. His clinical research interests involve the use of ultrasound for fetal growth assessment and the diagnosis of fetal structural anomalies.