Speakers

Dr. Lindsey Wimmer holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from St Catherine University, St. Paul, MN, a Master of Science degree in pediatric nursing from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, CO and a Doctor of Nursing Practice from St Catherine University. She is certified as a pediatric nurse practitioner and worked in emergency and primary care settings. Lindsey also taught nursing at the associates and baccalaureate levels for several years. She is the founder and Executive Director of Star Legacy Foundation and the International Partnership for Perinatal Excellence (IPPE). Lindsey is certified by IPPE and has been recognized with the Daisy, Butterfly, and Point of Light Awards. In 2016, she was honored with the Marian Sokol Award for the Advancement of Stillbirth Awareness and Prevention, and in 2020, she was named one of L’Oreal’s Top Ten Women of Worth. Lindsey and her husband, Trent, are the parents of Garrett who was stillborn at term on July 31, 2004 and his younger brothers and sister, Grant, Bennett and Austyn.

Dr Anya Arthurs is a Future Making Fellow, working with Professor Jose Polo in ACE and the Robinson Research Institute. After completing her PhD (University of Newcastle) in the field of post-transcriptional modifications in the placenta, Anya moved to Flinders University in 2019 for a postdoctoral position studying the mechanisms by which circular RNAs, as well as other non-coding RNAs, are able to facilitate the development of the placenta and contribute to pregnancy complications. Her interests include the involvement of epigenetics and non-coding RNAs in various aspects of human development and disease, particularly in reproductive health and placental ageing. From her research, she hopes to elucidate fundamental biological mechanisms, as well as deliver diagnostic tests that will inform clinical decision-making and aid in identifying drug targets for novel therapeutics.

Dr. Denney-Koelsch is a practicing palliative care physician and Interim Chief of the Division of Palliative Care at the University of Rochester Medical Center. She founded and directs the Perinatal Supportive Care Program for the past 14 years. She is an active researcher on perinatal palliative care, seeking to provide the best care for parents facing pregnancies with life-limiting fetal condition. She is author and editor of 2 books on Perinatal Palliative Care and most recently, Perinatal Bereavement Rituals and Practices across U.S. Cultures.

Stacey Fletcher is the Program Manager for Parent Voice at the Utah Stillbirth Center of Excellence. As a clinical trainer and Peer Support Director for the Utah Pregnancy After Loss (UPAL) Program, Stacey’s position ensures that parent experience plays a key role in developing excellent physical and mental health care. Stacey is the mom to Benjamin who was stillborn 18 years ago. She works each day to honor his memory and help other families who find themselves in similar tragic circumstances

Dr. Florescue is an OB/GYN in private practice at Women Gynecology and Childbirth Associates in Rochester, N.Y. She delivers babies at Highland Hospital in Rochester, NY. She received her medical degree at the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry, completed her internship and residency in obstetrics & gynecology at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Dr. Florescue is certified by the American Congress of Obstetrics & Gynecology and is a member of the Star Legacy Foundation medical advisory team. She and her husband are parents to a set of triplets. Dr. Florescue is passionate about the prevention of pregnancy and infant loss and the care for families who suffer these terrible tragedies.

Mrs. Hanson is the co-founder and Executive Director of Recurrent Pregnancy Loss Association (RPLA). Her professional experience includes health care marketing and non-profit management. She holds a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management. Megan is a life-long learner, a travel fanatic, a bookworm, and a chocolate aficionado. She lives in Seattle with her husband and her two children.

Dr Alexander Heazell is a clinical lecturer working at the Maternal and Fetal Health Research Centre, University of Manchester. After graduation from the University of Birmingham Medical School in 2000, he commenced clinical training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. After completing his PhD thesis on placenta dysfunction in preeclampsia, he has focused his research interests around stillbirth and fetal growth restriction. He is particularly interested in the role that placental dysfunction plays in these conditions, and whether understanding the nature of such placental failure can be used to identify pregnancies most at risk of stillbirth. He has also led qualitative research projects to explore professionals and parents’ experiences after stillbirth, with a particular focus on investigations following a stillbirth.

Dr Alexander Heazell has over 50 peer-reviewed publications and has co-written the RCOG green-top guidelines for the management of reduced fetal movements. In collaboration with Sands he has initiated the development of a national consent form for perinatal post-mortem and a care pathway for parents who experience a perinatal death. Dr. Heazell also runs a Rainbow Clinic for families who have experienced a stillbirth in a previous pregnancy and serves as the Chair of the International Stillbirth Alliance.

Dr. Jones is Co-Director, Center for Research in Perinatal Outcomes in the Department of Physiology and Aging, University of Florida College of Medicine. She completed her undergraduate studies at University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, U.K and her PhD in physiology at University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, U.K. She then received post-doctoral training in placental function in maternal obesity at the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, U.S.A

Dr Jones’ research interests lie in the involvement of the maternal-fetal interface in pathological pregnancies and
congenital diseases, such as fetal growth restriction, preterm birth, AIP and congenital heart disease.

Dr. Kingdom is a Clinician-Investigator and High-Risk Obstetrician in the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Division with a clinical and research focus on the full range of medical and surgical complications associated with abnormal placentation. His work centers on the Placenta Program, working with his colleagues Dr. Rory Windrim and Dr. Sebastian Hobson. His research focuses on improving clinical outcomes in women at risk of medical and surgical complications arising from disorder of the placenta. These efforts include screening, diagnosis and management of the “placental insufficiency” disorders and the placenta accreta spectrum (PAS) disorders. His current work focuses on the clinical utility of maternal circulating Placenta Growth Factor (PlGF) and in the use of advanced ultrasound and MR imaging methods. He recently published the results of a large (9,100) PlGF screening study aligned with GDM screening at 24-28 weeks to predict 3rd trimester placenta-mediated complications. The encouraging results will form the basis of a future cluster-based randomized control trial of PlGF screening designed to reduce the rate of so-called “preventable stillbirth”. John served as Chair of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Toronto 2013-2023 and enjoys mentoring all types of learners and junior Faculty members in Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Obstetrics.

Dr. Librizzi retired as one of the world’s leading practitioners of maternal fetal medicine, specializing in saving mothers-to-be from life-threatening conditions that might prompt other caregivers to terminate pregnancies. He graduated with honors in 1974 from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. Dr. Librizzi retired as Chief of maternal fetal medicine at Virtua Health System in New Jersey, Clinical Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, and Clinical Associate Professor of Nursing in the Associated Faculty of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

Dr. Kathleen Massmann holds a Ph.D. in Advanced Studies in Human Behavior with a research focus on Stillbirth and Posttraumatic Growth. She works as a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor in the area of pregnancy loss, infant loss, and pregnancy after loss. After experiencing the unexplained loss of her son Jacob in 2011, she has become an advocate for promoting competent and compassionate bereavement care to parents and families who have experienced the loss of a child.

Dr. Daniel Nuzum is a Board-certified Healthcare Chaplain and Clinical Pastoral
Education supervisor & educator based at Cork University Hospital and Cork University
Maternity Hospital, Ireland. Daniel is also an adjunct lecturer in the College of Medicine
and Health, University College Cork. Daniel received his PhD from University College
Cork in 2016 where his thesis was ‘The spiritual and professional impact of stillbirth’.
Daniel is an active member of the Pregnancy Loss Research Group at University College
Cork led by Professor Keelin O’Donoghue.
Daniel has researched, published and presented on the areas of perinatal
bereavement, communication, palliative care, spiritual care practice and education,
and staU support. Daniel is an editor of Health and Social Care Chaplaincy. Daniel’s
research interests are in the areas of care following miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal
bereavement, spirituality in specialist palliative care, pastoral education, wellbeing and
healthcare ethics. Daniel lectures on a number of undergraduate and postgraduate
programmes in Ireland and the UK on whole person care, communication skills,
spiritual care, spirituality, maternity and paediatric care and Palliative Care.
In addition, Daniel serves as external examiner for the examination of PhD/ Doctoral
theses in chaplaincy and spiritual care. Daniel has received a number of awards for
his research and work; most recently being awarded a Civic Award in 2023 from the
Lord Mayor of Cork “in recognition of his outstanding commitment to spiritual and
pastoral care and education in perinatal bereavement and palliative care”. Most
importantly Daniel is a proud husband and father to five creative and energetic children.

Dr. O’Brien is a Professor in the Department of Neurology, Division of Sleep Medicine, a Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and a Research Scientist in the Department of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery.

Dr. O’Brien earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in physiology from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom in 1992. In 1998 she gained a PhD in neonatal physiology from Keele University, United Kingdom under the mentorship of David P. Southall, MD. The title of her PhD thesis was “Oxygen saturation and its relationship with breathing patterns in healthy full term infants throughout their first 24 hours of life”.

Dr. O’Brien completed post-doctoral work in maternal and infant health research and worked with a group focused on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). After monitoring many babies overnight, Dr. O’Brien decided to learn more about the role of sleep in health outcomes and relocated to the United States in 2001. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in pediatric sleep research at the University of Louisville, KY with David Gozal, MD. In 2006 she was recruited to the faculty at the University of Michigan as an Assistant Professor by Ron Chervin, MD, MS, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2011 and Professor in 2022.

Dr. O’Brien’s primary research interests include the impact of sleep disruption in pregnancy and the association with adverse maternal and fetal outcomes, including fetal growth restriction and stillbirth, as well as intervention therapies to optimize sleep in the perinatal population. She was responsible for developing collaborations between the Division of Sleep Medicine and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and has held several NIH grants, foundation grants, and donor funds in support of this work. In addition to pregnancy, Dr. O’Brien’s work includes the impact of sleep disruption on fertility/infertility. She is also involved in clinical trials of treatment of sleep-disordered breathing in children, both in typically developing children and those with medical conditions such as cerebral palsy, Trisomy 21, cleft palate repair, craniofacial anomalies, and Williams Syndrome. Dr. O’Brien participates in the training of sleep medicine fellows and acts as a mentor for students, post-docs, fellows, and junior faculty interested in sleep research. She has published over 140 original manuscripts, over 35 invited reviews and book chapters, and has given numerous invited lectures around the world. In addition, she serves on NIH study sections, is part of the Medical Advisory Team of the Star Legacy Stillbirth Foundation, and has served as a reviewer for over 90 medical journals, including the American Journal of Perinatology, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Archives of Disease in Childhood, British Medical Journal, British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Human Reproduction, International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, New England Journal of Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics, Sleep, Sleep Medicine, Thorax, and The Lancet.

Dr. O’Leary, holds a B.E.S. and a Masters in Maternal-Child Health from the University of MN. She also has a Masters in Psychology through research from Queens University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her Ph.D. is in Work, Community and Family Education and from the University of Minnesota. Her dissertation was The Meaning of Parenting During Pregnancy, After the Loss of a Baby: A Descriptive Phenomenological Study of Parenting a Subsequent Baby Following a Perinatal Loss. She became certified as Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale examiner during her MPH course and moved into a hospital setting working within a High Risk Perinatal Center. Dr. O’Leary’s Ph.D. research was funded by the Bush Foundation. She does research and writing on prenatal parenting; pregnancy and parenting after the loss of a baby, including its impact on fathers and siblings, including adults who were the child in their family born after the loss of a baby. Joann formerly taught CEED online courses: Pregnancy and Birth: An Emerging Perspective on Children’s Development and Pregnancy’s Unexpected Outcomes: Death, Disabilities, and the Impact on Parents and Children–A Guide for Practitioners. Joann lives in Minneapolis, MN with her husband, John.

Dr. Parast received her M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she held the prestigious Medical Scientist Training Program fellowship. She did her residency training in Anatomic Pathology at Emory University Hospital, followed by fellowship training in Women’s and Perinatal Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in affiliation with Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Following her clinical training, she combined subspecialty sign-out with laboratory research at Brigham’s Center for Excellence in Vascular Biology, initially as a Fellow and later as an Instructor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Parast established her independent research program at UC San Diego in 2008, where her work has been continuously funded through grants from both the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Dr. Piazza is Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and faculty in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is the Director of the Vascular Medicine Section at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Piazza received his medical degree from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts and completed residency in internal medicine, Chief Medical Residency, general cardiology fellowship, and an advanced cardiovascular imaging fellowship at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He also completed a National Heart Lung and Blood Institute-sponsored advanced fellowship in vascular medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Piazza’s research interests include the epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of venous thromboembolism, thrombophilia-associated infertility, computerized decision support to improve cardiovascular outcomes, as well as stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation.

Dr. Tosin Popoola is an experienced Registered Nurse and Midwife with an outstanding record of achievement in teaching and research into issues relating to stillbirth bereavement care, palliative care and cultural issues in bereavement. Tosin completed his PhD in 2019 and has extensive multi-country and multicultural nursing and midwifery experience in Australia, Botswana, New Zealand, Nigeria, and South Africa.

Alisha Reginal is a mother of two boys and leads an organization called Remembering My Child, which she and her husband founded after the stillbirth of their first child, Travis Jr. Through Remembering My Child, Alisha helps bereaved parents grieve, heal, and cherish their children’s memories, and she equips supportive loved ones and professionals to better care for bereaved parents. Alisha holds a Master of Health Administration degree from The George Washington University and a B.A. from Yale University; is certified in Mental Health First Aid; and works as a healthcare consultant, advising a wide range of health system, health policy, and other leaders on strategies to improve healthcare delivery, processes, and outcomes.

Professor Claire Roberts directs the Pregnancy Health and Beyond Laboratory (PHaB Lab) at Flinders University in Adelaide South Australia. She is immediate Past President of the International Federation of Placenta Associations. With a strong interest in genetic and modifiable risk factors for pregnancy complications, her team recruited large pregnancy cohorts and has developed algorithms for use as screening tools for early pregnancy risk prediction of major pregnancy complications in first time mothers.

Dr. Bharti Sharma Assistant Professor at satellite centre of PGIMER Chandigarh, India. Her areas of interest include high-risk obstetrics and Perinatology (Stillbirths) She is a: Regional Trainer for MPDSR and Establishing Newborn Birth Defect & Stillbirth Surveillance and has 40 Publications in peer-reviewed National & International Journals

Sue has done research in the area of perinatal bereavement and works as a Perinatal Nurse Navigator at Maple Grove Hospital, with families who have suffered the early or late loss of a baby.

Sue’s nursing and teaching career spans over 40 years. Along with her colleague and co-founder, Lynn Zdelchik, they began “Birth with Dignity” in order to help address the high mortality rates of Ugandan mothers and babies in childbirth . Sue is currently serving on the board with the International Stillbirth Alliance. She resides in the Twin Cities with her husband, two grown children and their families.

Prof Tong is an academic obstetrician at the University of Melbourne. He co-leads several teams seeking discoveries to reduce the impact of major pregnancy complications. These teams are developing blood tests to prevent stillbirth and finding drugs to treat the life-endangering disease of preeclampsia.

Dr. Toppin is currently the Board Chair and is a board-certified OB/GYN with many years of experience in women’s health care. She graduated from Wellesley College. She received her medical degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1982 and then completed her residency at Harlem Hospital, serving as Executive Chief Resident in her fourth year. Her professional experience includes serving as clinical instructor at Columbia University College of Medicine, medical directorship of the Ossining Open Door Clinic in upstate New York and private practice in White Plains, New York. Dr. Toppin was selected as a Top Obstetricican/Gynecologist in Woodbury, MN by The International Association of Obstetrics & Gynecologists published in “The Leading Physicians of the World” Dr. Toppin was elected for SUPER DOCTORS 2015 in the Mpls. St. Paul Magazine. Dr Toppin is the author of a wonderful book called One in Four: Shifting the Balance on Pregnancy Loss.

Dr Warland is a registered midwife and lecturer in midwifery at the University of South Australia. Jane is an active researcher in the areas of population health, mental health, and maternal health. Since suffering the unexplained full term stillbirth of her daughter Emma in 1993 she has been a passionate researcher into preventative and modifiable risk factors for stillbirth. She has published a textbook, book chapters and journal articles and has presented her research at numerous national and international conferences.

Dr. Workalemahu is an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the division of maternal-fetal medicine at the University of Utah. I developed a research program to investigate the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms related to obstetric complications (and their short-and long-term adverse outcomes)

Ms. Zdecjlik has been a certified nurse-midwife for 40 years. She spent her midwifery career in clinical practice, teaching at the University of Minnesota in the master’s degree Nurse-Midwifery Program and at Bethel University in their Nursing Program. Lynn, along with her colleague Sue Steen, founded Birth with Dignity in 2018, whose mission it is to save Ugandan mothers and babies in childbirth and care for those whose babies die. Lynn resides in the Twin Cities of Minnesota with her husband, adult children and grandchildren.