In May 2023, the Ludeman Center added two new members to the Scientific Council. This group is comprised of prominent scientists from academic medical centers around North America. They are charged with offering a national and international mentoring network for our researchers, providing updates on research underway at other centers and medical institutions, and supporting senior faculty at the Ludeman Center in developing and implementing a robust research agenda. Several Ludeman Center early career researchers presented their work to the Scientific Council to solicit feedback on their research. 

“The Scientific Council is an important advisory group for the Ludeman Center. They help guide our scientific priorities and provide valuable expertise to our researchers.” - Judy Regensteiner, PhD 

New Scientific Council Members 

Liisa Galea, PhD 

Dr. Liisa Galea is a professor in the Department of Psychology and a member of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health at the University of Toronto. She is also Health Advisor to VPRI, Lead of the Women’s Health Research Cluster and a Scientific Advisor for the Women’s Health Research Institute. Her research investigates how sex hormones influence brain health and disease in both females and males. The main goal of her research is to improve brain health for women and men by examining the influence of sex and sex hormones on normal and diseased brain states such as depression and Alzheimer’s disease. 

Liisa Galea, PhD 

Erin D. Michos, MD, MHS 

Dr. Erin D. Michos is an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, with joint appointment in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is the director of Women's Cardiovascular Health and the associate director of Preventive Cardiology with the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease. Dr. Michos has authored or co-authored over 500 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals and 10 book chapters. She is an internationally known leader in preventive cardiology, Women's Cardiovascular Health, and Cardio-Obstetrics. 

Michelle Clementi, PhD  

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry – Child – Children’s Hospital Colorado  

Dr. Michelle Clementi is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She is also a pediatric psychologist in the Section of Child Neurology at Children’s Hospital Colorado where she founded the headache psychology clinical service line. Her research, which has been funded by the Ludeman Family Center for Women’s Health Research, the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, and the Children’s Hospital Colorado Research Institute, focuses on the intersection of mental health and physical health in adolescents with chronic pain and migraine. Chronic migraine is a condition that affects girls more than boys and can seriously disrupt their health long-term. Dr. Clementi’s professional mission is to advance psychosocial interventions aimed at improving quality of life for children, adolescents, and young adults with pain conditions. 

Rebecca Scalzo, PhD  

Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes  

Dr. Rebecca Scalzo is an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and a Research Scientist at the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center. The goal of her research is to better understand the diabetes burden in premenopausal women through the investigation of the link between type 2 diabetes and estrogen signaling. The primary themes of her research program are 1) to determine the interaction of type 2 diabetes and estrogen signaling on skeletal muscle mitochondria and 2) to elucidate the mechanisms by which endocrine therapies for breast cancer increase type 2 diabetes risk in cancer survivors.  

Sean Iwamoto, MD  

Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes  

Sean Iwamoto, MD, is a board-certified adult endocrinologist/internist and an assistant professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center. His research focuses on the intersection of transgender health, cardiovascular risk, and aging—particularly related to the impacts of chronic gender-affirming hormone therapy and gonadectomy on vascular and metabolic health and how age modulates these effects.  

Suet Nee Chen, PhD  

Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology  

Suet Nee Chen, PhD, is an assistant professor with the Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology and one of the first recipients of the Ludeman Center’s Women’s Health Innovation Scholar (WHINS) award. Dr. Chen’s long-term research interest is to delineate the molecular genetics and pathogenesis of hereditary cardiomyopathies. Dr. Chen’s ultimate research goal is to build a translational genomics research program in molecular cardiology to investigate pathogenic signaling pathways altered by human mutations encoding for structural proteins in the heart.   

Kimberley Bruce, PhD  

Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes  

Kimberley Bruce, PhD, is an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes. Dr. Bruce wants to use her expertise to interrogate the molecular mechanisms driving lipid disorders. Her laboratory is aimed at finding new mechanisms relating to lipid and lipoprotein processing in the brain that she can target to improve outcomes for previously incurable diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis, diseases which are more likely to impact women.