Liisa Galea is the Treliving Chair in Women’s Mental Health at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and a Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmacology and Toxicology at University of Toronto. She comes to Toronto, after 25 years as a Professor at University of British Columbia. She leads the Women’s Health Research Cluster (>500 members worldwide) and is a passionate advocate for research on women’s brain health. Dr. Galea is a world-renowned expert in sex hormone influences on brain and behaviour in both health and disease states, with a focus on dementia and stress-related psychiatric disorders. Dr. Galea has won numerous awards including the NSERC Discovery Accelerator. She has given >60 international talks, including the Mortyn Jones Lecture (International Congress of Neuroendocrinology). She is a Fellow at International Behavioral Neuroscience Society (IBNS). She has over 195 papers, is highly cited (>20000 citations), is the Principal Editor of Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology (IF= 7.803), the President of Organization for the Study of Sex Differences and co-Vice-President of Canadian Organisation for Sex and Gender Research. She serves on advisory and editorial boards (e.g. Hormones and Behavior, Endocrinology, Psychoneuroendocrinology, Neuroendocrinology), and peer review panels (NIH, Wellcome Trust, CIHR, NSERC).

Jill M. Goldstein, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Founder and Executive Director, Innovation Center on Sex Differences in Medicine (ICON-✘) (http://icon.mgh.harvard.edu) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and the Helen T. Moerschner Endowed MGH Research Institute Chair in Women’s Health. She is a clinical neuroscientist and expert in understanding sex differences in disorders of the brain and their co-occurrence with general medicine, such as cardiovascular disease. Her program of research (funded by NIH for >30 years) called Clinical Neuroscience Laboratory of Sex Differences in the Brain (http://cnl-sd.mgh.harvard.edu), consists of an interdisciplinary team integrating brain imaging, physiology, neuroendocrinology, genetics, immunology, and collaborations with basic scientists. The studies take a lifespan approach, beginning in prenatal development, to understanding the causes of sex differences in the comorbidity of depression, cardiometabolic diseases, and Alzheimer’s disease. She has received numerous awards to support the work, served on scientific advisory boards for women’s health, brain health, and Alzheimer’s disease, and participated in strategic planning for the NIH and National Academy of Medicine. She spent her career at Harvard training the next generation in women’s health/sex differences in medicine, including leading for >17 years an ORWH-NICHD Harvard-wide K12 junior faculty training program on building interdisciplinary careers in women’s health. In 2018, she launched ICON-✘ at MGH whose mission is to enhance discoveries about sex differences in medicine and incorporate them into developing novel sex-dependent diagnostic tools and therapies. In 2020, ICON-✘ was designated an NIH Specialized Center of Research Excellence (SCORE) on Sex Differences in Medicine, one of only 11 in the U.S.  

Wendy M. Kohrt, PhD, is a Distinguished Professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and the Nancy Anschutz Endowed Chair In Women's Health Research. She is the Director of Research for Geriatric Medicine and the Director of the IMAGE research group (Investigations in Metabolism, Aging, Gender, and Exercise). Dr. Kohrt is the Director of the Energy Balance Core Laboratory for the NIH-supported Nutrition and Obesity Research Center and is the Chair of the Scientific Advisory and Review Committee for the Adult Clinical and Translational Research Center. She served on the Federal Advisory Committee that prepared the evidence report for the first Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, which were launched by the Department of Health and Human Services in October 2008. She is an invited member of the Isis Network on Musculoskeletal Health through the Society for Women’s Health Research. Dr. Kohrt is currently serving as co-chair of the Steering Committee assembled by the National Research Council to conduct the Decadal Survey on Biological and Physical Sciences in Space, which will recommend research to support space exploration in the 2010 to 2020 decade. Dr. Kohrt has been recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus by the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point and received a Citation Award from the American College of Sports Medicine.

Dr. Kohrt has been continuously funded by the NIH as a Principal Investigator for more than two decades and has more than 140 original and solicited research publications. She is currently the Principal Investigator for two NIH R01 research awards and a Co-investigator for six other NIH awards. She has mentored or co-mentored 24 Ph.D.-trained and 14 M.D.-trained investigators, the majority of whom have established independent research careers.

C. Noel Bairey Merz, MD, holds the Women's Guild Endowed Chair in Women's Health, and is Director of the Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center, the Linda Joy Pollin Women’s Heart Health Program, and the Preventive Cardiac Center at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute. She also is Professor of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Dr. Bairey Merz received her bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and her medical degree from Harvard University with subsequent training at UCSF and Cedars Sinai Medical Center.

Dr. Bairey Merz's research interests are focused on women and cardiovascular disease, mental stress and heart disease, the role of exercise and stress management in reversing disease, the role of cholesterol and nutrition management in heart disease, and adverse pregnancy outcomes and cardiovascular disease. Currently, she is chair of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored WISE (Women's Ischemic Syndrome Evaluation) initiative, which is investigating potential methods for more effective diagnosis and evaluation of coronary artery disease in women.

Dr. Erin Michos is an Associate Professor in the Division of Cardiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, with joint appointment in Epidemiology at the School of Public Health. She is the Director of Women’s Cardiovascular Health and Associate Director of Preventive Cardiology at Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Michos is an internationally known expert in Preventive Cardiology and Women’s Health, having authored >650 publications and 11 book chapters. Her expertise involves (1) Cardiovascular Disease in Women; (2) Lipids; (3) Cardiometabolic disorders (4) Coronary artery calcium and biomarkers for cardiovascular risk prediction.

She is the co-Editor-in-Chief for the American Journal of Preventive Cardiology. She is Co-Director of the IMPACT Center (Improving Participation Among Diverse Populations in Cardiovascular Clinical Trials) at Johns Hopkins. She is co-investigator in several NIH-funded studies including the MESA and ARIC cohorts. She has mentored over 60 individuals and recipient of 2 mentoring awards. 

Dr. Michos completed medical school at Northwestern University, Internal Medicine residency and Cardiology fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and MHS degree at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Anne Peters, MD, CDE, is the director of the USC Clinical Diabetes Program. She received her medical degree from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine before proceeding to Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, California, to perform her internship and residency in internal medicine. She completed an endocrinology fellowship at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where she took charge of the Comprehensive Diabetes Program before she moved to UCLA to run the Clinical Diabetes Program there. Because of an interest in working with the underserved, she subsequently moved to USC.

Her major areas of interest include developing systems of care for management and treatment of diabetes and its complications and new therapeutics and technologies for the treatment of diabetes. She was featured in a PBS documentary entitled "Remaking American Medicine." In 2008, she was awarded the ADA "Outstanding Physician Clinical Award."

Dr. Peters is involved in numerous professional organizations and activities, including the American Board of Internal Medicine (Endocrine Subspecialty Board), American College of Physicians, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and the American Diabetes Association, among others. She is currently is a reviewer for Diabetes Care, JAMA, and many other journals. She is a member of the ADA Publications Committee and as the Scientific Sessions Planning Committee.

Dr. Regensteiner has authored more than 150 research publications in her areas of expertise and has received many honors, including the Department of Medicine's Ph.D. Teaching and Research Award and the CU System-wide Elizabeth Gee Memorial Lectureship Award. She is a dedicated mentor and serves as Principal Investigator of the National Institutes of Health “Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health” grant, which provides training and mentorship for promising junior faculty members pursuing research careers. Other activities include participation as a committee chair for the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans Advisory Committee, formed by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt in 2008. She is a national and international speaker. Most recently, she participated as Co-chair in two strategic planning meetings for the Office on Research in Women’s Health at the National Institutes of Health. The results of these meetings will help direct the research agenda for this Office for the next 10 years.

Jane E. B. Reusch, M.D. is Associate Director of the Ludeman Family Center for Women's Health Research and Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado Denver and Denver VAMC. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame and attended medical school at Northwestern University and the University of Minnesota. Dr. Reusch did her internal medicine, endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism training at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Dr. Reusch is Past-President of the American Federation for Medical Research Foundation, and she is a member of the American Diabetes Association, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the American Association of Physicians, the American Heart Association, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, The Endocrine Society, and the American Heart Association. Dr. Reusch is currently on the FASEB Board Science Policy Committee where she represents the interests of clinical research and the need to have a workforce of clinical investigators to translate scientific advances to patients in the community.

Dr. Reusch leads a translational research program which seeks to understand the molecular barriers to optimal exercise function in adults and children with Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. In her collaborative research program with Dr Regensteiner, they have characterized defects in maximal and submaximal exercise capacity. In human subjects, this dysfunction correlates with insulin resistance, endothelial dysfunction, decreased perfusion of the heart and skeletal muscle and decreased mitochondrial function. Treatment with the insulin sensitizer rosiglitazone augments functional exercise capacity in sedentary people with type 2 diabetes. This serves as proof of concept that targeting the functional defects can improve the exercise dysfunction.

The Reusch lab was recently awarded a VA merit award to investigate the heart and vascular response to exercise training in rodent models of type 2 diabetes. She made the novel and disconcerting observation that mitochondrial adaptive changes induced by exercise are blunted in diabetic rodent models. They have identified that nitric oxide synthase dysfunction contributes to failed adaptation and have exciting preliminary results suggesting that a new class of diabetes drugs can restore endothelial nitric oxide synthase function and augment the beneficial response to exercise training and diabetes. This finding will support a 4 year investigation of molecular barriers to exercise is diabetes. Ongoing studies with Dr. Regensteiner are evaluating these same interventions in human subjects with diabetes.

Yoel Sadovsky, MD, is the Director of the Magee-Womens Research Institute, Elsie Hilliard Hillman Chair of Women’s Health Research and Professor of OBGYN, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and CTSI in the Department of OBGYN and Reproductive Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Yoel Sadovsky received his MD degree from the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem in 1986, followed by OBGYN residency at Washington University in St. Louis and maternal-fetal medicine and postdoctoral research fellowships at the University of California, San Francisco. He then returned to Washington University as a reproductive biologist and specialist in high-risk pregnancy, where he was appointed tenured professor of OBGYN, and Cell Biology and Physiology. Dr. Sadovsky served as director of the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Fellowship at Washington University between 1997-2007, and as Director, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Ultrasound from 1999-2007. In 2007, he assumed Directorship of Magee-Womens Research Institute (MWRI) at the University of Pittsburgh, and Vice Chair (Research), Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences. MWRI is the hub for approximately 110 basic and translational reproductive biology researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, 70 of whom reside at the Institute’s 120,000 sq ft research building and in the adjacent Magee-Womens Hospital.

Dr. Sadovsky’s research on feto-placental development and trophoblast function parallels his clinical expertise in maternal-fetal medicine. Using human placental cells as well as mouse models, he studies molecular pathways that govern placental development and adaptive response to stress. Primary areas of research include: (1) Placental uptake and processing of metabolic fuels, with studies that center on the uptake, storage, and trafficking of fatty acids that are critical for feto-placental development, (2) The role of microRNA in placental function, where the lab combines computationally identified sets of miRNA targets with transcriptomic analysis, as well as overexpression and silencing approaches, to define critical placental microRNA targets, (3) Placental injury and adaptation, where the lab defines hypoxic trophoblast signature pathways that govern trophoblast adaptation to injury. Dr. Sadovsky’s laboratory is funded via several NIH grants, and his investigation has resulted in the publication of 106 peer-reviewed scientific articles and 17 book chapters and invited publications, and his selection for the Society for Gynecologic Investigation’s (SGI) President’s Achievement Award in 2004.

Dr. Sadovsky has served on several National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) study sections, chaired the NICHD Maternal-Fetal Biology Research Study Section in 2005-06, the NICHD Genomic and Proteomic Network for Preterm Birth Research steering committee, and is currently a member of the NICHD Advisory Council and the NICHD Division of Intramural Research Review Panel. He chairs the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Initiative Advisory Committee, is a member of the March of Dimes Scientific Advisory Council and a number of other academic advisory boards. He was recently appointed Editor for the journal Placenta.

Dr. Sadovsky has trained numerous students, residents, post-doctoral fellows and faculty. He is the Research Director of the Magee-Womens Basic and Translational Reproductive Health Training (WRHR, NIH K12) Program, and recently submitted the competitive renewal of the University’s long-standing Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH, NIH K12) program, and anticipates assuming directorship of this program in 2013.

Nanette K. Wenger, MD, MACC, MACP, FAHA, is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at the Emory University School of Medicine. She is a Consultant to the Emory Heart and Vascular Center and the Founding Consultant of the Emory Women's Heart Center.

Coronary heart disease in women is one of Dr. Wenger’s major clinical and research interests. She chaired the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Conference on Cardiovascular Health and Disease in Women. Dr. Wenger has expertise in cardiac rehabilitation as well. She chaired the World Health Organization Expert Committee on Rehabilitation after Cardiovascular Disease, and co-chaired the Guideline Panel on Cardiac Rehabilitation for the U.S. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. Dr. Wenger has had a longstanding interest in geriatric cardiology, is a Past President of the Society of Geriatric Cardiology, and served as Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Geriatric Cardiology for more than 15 years. She is listed in Best Doctors in America, and was selected Georgia Woman of the Year in 2010.