Staff
Stephen Kennedy, Co-Director
Stephen Kennedy is Clinical Reader and Head of the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology (NDOG) at the University of Oxford, as well as an Honorary Consultant Gynaecologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. He graduated from Keble College, Oxford, with a degree in Experimental Psychology and then qualified in medicine at Guy’s Hospital, London. He trained at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford; Queen Charlotte’s & Chelsea Hospital, London, and the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading. He held the posts of Research Fellow, Clinical Lecturer, and Senior Fellow in Reproductive Medicine in Oxford, before being appointed to his current post. He jointly heads an international research group, which aims to identify the genes that predispose women to develop endometriosis, and he is Programme Director of INTERGROWTH-21 st . He also leads the Women’s Health Theme within the Oxford Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre and its translational research programmes, which include the development of novel imaging methods for laparoscopic sentinel node mapping.
José Villar, Co-Director
Dr José Villar is an Obstetrician and Gynecologist. He has Master degrees in Nutrition and in Public Health from Harvard University, and spent a post-doctoral Fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University, where he was Associate Professor of Public Health and Obstetrics and Gynecology until 1985. He was Director of the Division of Nutrition and Health and Professor of Nutrition at the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama (INCAP) of WHO in 1985-1986. In 1987-89 was “Expert” in Obstetrics at the National Institutes of Health (NIH/NICHD) in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, and visiting Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Between 1989-2006 he was Manager and Global Coordinator of Maternal and Perinatal Health at WHO.He was founder and Editor of the WHO Reproductive Health Library. He has authored over 180 publications. He is now Senior Fellow in Perinatal Medicine at the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Oxford in the UK and Co-Director of the Oxford Maternal and Perinatal Health Institute (OMPHI), Green Templeton College, University of Oxford. He is principal investigator of multi-centre studies of factors affecting fetal growth and pregnancy outcomes and teaches Obstetric research and Perinatal Epidemiology.
Aris Papageorghiou, Clinical Research Director
Aris is a Senior Fellow in Fetal Medicine at Oxford University supported by the Oxford Partnership Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre with funding from the Department of Health NIHR Biomedical Research Centres funding scheme. He also works as a Consultant in Fetal Medicine and Obstetrics at St George's Hospital, London. He graduated in medicine from the University of Sheffield, and did his initial clinical training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology there. Between 1999 and 2002 he was a research fellow at the Harris Birthright Research Centre, King's College Hospital, London from where he received his MD in screening for pre-eclampsia. He completed his specialisation in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in SW London, and underwent subspecialist training in Maternal and Fetal Medicine. His main research interests are the use of obstetric ultrasound in describing normal and abnormal embryonic and fetal growth, and screening for pre-eclampsia. He is a scientific editor for BJOG; an editor of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology; a member of the Research Advisory Committee for Wellbeing of Women/RCOG; and a member of the scientific committee, of the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Ann Lambert, Administrator of Global Studies
Ann Lambert is Administrator of OMPHI Projects. She obtained a BSc in Biochemistry and PhD from the University of Manchester, UK. For 19 years she was a Research Associate at Hope Hospital, Salford, UK, where her work in the field of endocrinology led to the publication of 6 reviews and 46 peer-reviewed papers. From 1999-2003 she coordinated the international Oxford Endometriosis Gene Study, which aims to determine the genetic basis of endometriosis, and then worked for 5 years as Laboratory Manager in NDOG. Since December 2008 she has worked as administrator, financial controller and publications coordinator of INTERGROWTH 21st , a multi-centre study conducted in 8 institutions worldwide to study growth, health and nutrition from early pregnancy to infancy.
Leila Cheikh Ismail, Director of Field Studies
Leila Cheikh Ismail is the project leader for INTERGROWTH-21 study. She holds a PhD in Nutrition from Oxford Brookes University and is a registered nutritionist from the UK Nutrition Society. Dr Cheikh Ismail has more than 15 years of experience in international studies on nutrition and has worked as Nutrition Scientist at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. She also previously worked as a Nutrition Technical Officer at the World Health Organization (WHO) where she followed-up on food and nutrition programme activities in many countries; introduction and adoption of the WHO new growth standards and activities related to the global strategy on infant and young child feeding. Dr Cheikh Ismail has implemented many training workshops in collaboration with different international organizations and universities, focusing on the new WHO Growth Standards, Nutrition Communication and Infant feeding. She is an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Food, Nutrition and Public Health and has many publications in international journals. She is recognized by the WHO as a Regional Facilitator for the WHO new growth standards. Her current research interests are: Human growth across populations, nutrition throughout life, anthropometry, obesity and dietary assessment.
Ana Langer, Coordinator of Women's Health projects
In July 2010, Ana Langer, M.D., was appointed as the coordinator of the Harvard School of Public Health recently established Women and Health flagship initiative. This innovative program focuses on research, teaching and translation of knowledge into practice in the fields of reproductive and women’s health, gender, and the role of women as providers of health care at the domestic and institutional levels. Before taking this position, Dr. Langer was the President of EngenderHealth, a leading international reproductive health organization working to improve the quality of health care in the world’s poorest communities. A lifelong advocate for women’s health and rights, Dr. Langer’s expertise includes reproductive health policy, programs and research with a particular focus on maternal health. Dr. Langer lived in Mexico for more than 20 years, which served as a base for launching initiatives throughout Latin America and the Caribbean to improve women’s health. As a special advisor to the Minister of Health in Mexico City, and as Director of the Division of Research on Women and Children’s Health for the National Institute of Public Health in Cuernavaca, Dr. Langer led efforts to advance policies aimed at reducing maternal mortality and disability. Dr. Langer also served as the Population Council’s Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, overseeing reproductive health, family planning, and HIV prevention programs and research in more than 10 countries. As Acting Director of the Council’s Reproductive Health program, Dr. Langer guided global work to reduce unwanted pregnancy, improve access to safe abortion, and test the safety and efficacy of microbicides to prevent HIV. Dr. Langer has published in more than 30 peer-reviewed scientific journals, as well as in the popular press including the International Herald Tribune, Newsweek, and The Guardian. The author of numerous books and chapters on reproductive and maternal health, Dr. Langer also sits on the World Health Organization’s Advisory Committee on Health Research, and is the co-chair of the International Planned Parenthood Federation's International Medical Advisory Panel. Dr. Langer currently serves on several editorial boards, including The Lancet, the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, and the WHO Reproductive Health Library. She earned her medical degree from the National University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is board certified in pediatrics and neonatology and has an honorary doctorate degree from Stephen’s College, the second women’s college established in the United States (May 2009). Originally from Argentina, she is fluent in Spanish, French, and English.
Fernando Barros, Coordinator of South American Projects
Dr Fernando Barros graduated in Medicine in Southern Brazil and trained initially as a paediatrician in Rio de Janeiro. He obtained a Master of Science degree in Maternal and Child Health from the Institute of Child Health, University of London, and a PhD in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. His PhD thesis focused on the perinatal health of babies born in the city of Pelotas, Brazil, in the year 1982. He was Professor of Epidemiology of the Federal University of Pelotas, and founded the Epidemiological Research Centre at the same University, where he still works. He carried out extensive research in maternal and child health epidemiology in several low and middle income countries, especially in Latin America. In Southern Brazil he has been working with three birth cohort studies which started in the years 1982, 1993 and 2004, and are still being followed up. He has been also Research Scientist at the PAHO/WHO Latin American Perinatal Centre, in Montevideo, Uruguay. Author of numerous books and chapters, he has published over 200 papers in international peer-reviewed journals in the areas of maternal, perinatal and child health, and evaluation of health services, and is currently Professor of Epidemiology of the Post-Graduate Course in Health and Behavior of the Catholic University of Pelotas, Brazil. Besides the birth cohort studies conducted in Southern Brazil, Dr. Barros is currently working in a number of international research projects, including the Intergrowth 21 st study, coordinated by the University of Oxford.
Professor Aldo Campana, Coordinator of Online Resources
Aldo Campana is emeritus professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva. He was head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the University Hospital of Geneva, president of the Clinical Medical Section of the Faculty of Medicine of Geneva and president of the Swiss Medical Interfaculty Committee until 1994. Since then, he is the director of the Geneva WHO Collaborating Centre in Education and Research in Human Reproduction and Editor in Chief of the comprehensive web resource page for international diagnostics and treatments protocols in Obstetrics, Embriology and Gynaecology of the Geneva WHO Collaborating Center. He is the president of the Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research .
