Hadine Joffe, MD, MSc | Executive Director
Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women’s Health & Gender Biology
Dr. Joffe is the Paula A. Johnson Professor of Psychiatry in the Field of Women's Health at Harvard Medical School. She also services as the Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Psychiatry at BWH. With joint positions at BWH and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Dr. Joffe directs the Women’s Hormones and Aging Research Program. She is an experienced clinician and NIH-funded researcher in women’s mental health, her work is dedicated to advancing the understanding, treatment, and consequences of symptoms resulting from reproductive hormone changes in the brain. Her clinical and research work focuses on the course, mechanisms, and treatment of menopausal symptoms – including hot flashes, sleep disturbance, depression, and fatigue – in healthy women and in breast cancer patients.
Dr. Joffe received her medical degree from Cornell University Medical College and her master’s degree in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed her residency training in psychiatry at McLean Hospital and a fellowship in women’s mental health at Massachusetts General Hospital. In recognition of her contributions to women’s health research, she was awarded the Thomas Clarkson Outstanding Clinical & Basic Science Research Award from the North American Menopause Society.
Read more about Dr. Joffe's work and the Connors Center.
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JoAnn Manson, MD, MPH, DrPH | Scientific Advisor
Dr. Manson is the Chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at BWH, the Michael and Lee Bell Professor of Women's Health at Harvard Medical School, and a Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The focus of Dr. Manson’s research has been women's health, randomized clinical trials in cardiovascular disease prevention, and population health/translational research. She has studied the role of lifestyle factors, diet, micronutrient supplementation, and reproductive and hormonal factors as predictors of chronic disease in women. Other major interests include the role of vitamin D, Omega-3s, and folate in the prevention of CVD, diabetes, and cancer. She has studied extensively the role of moderate-intensity exercise as compared with vigorous exercise in the prevention of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and breast cancer in women. She has also been actively involved in studies of biomarker and genetic predictors of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. She is one of the lead investigators on several landmark women’s health studies, including the Women’s Health Initiative, the Nurses’ Health Study, the Women’s Antioxidant and Folic Acid Cardiovascular Study, and others.
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Lydia Pace, MD, MPH | Director of the Women’s Health Policy and Advocacy
Dr. Pace is a researcher with the Division of Women’s Health and an urgent care physician in primary care at BWH, and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is a also a graduate of the Global Women’s Health Fellowship with the Connors Center/Division of Women’s Health.
Her research focuses on the delivery of and access to preventive health care services to women in the United States as well as the developing world. She is particularly interested in women’s cancers and family planning. She has researched breast cancer screening behaviors in the U.S. following the 2009 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations, and has studied the complexities of breast cancer screening decisions in the US. She has also examined the impact of the Affordable Care Act on contraceptive costs and use. She leads research in Rwanda examining effective and feasible strategies for breast cancer early detection, and the quality of breast cancer care. Dr. Pace also teaches Harvard Medical School students and BWH residents in health policy and women’s health.
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Deborah Bartz, MD, MPH | Director of Education
Dr. Bartz is an obstetrician-gynecologist at BWH and an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School. She has previously served as an Associate Clerkship Director for medical student rotations and is currently the Medical Director of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s state-wide Title X Program and the Director of the BWH Ryan Training Program, where she has been innovative in expanding primary care specialist, resident, and medical student training to include evidence-based, women’s health care through simulation and through graduated models of training. As a result of her mentorship work, she has received several teaching awards and entrance into the BWH Faculty Mentorship Leadership Program and the Association of Professors in Obstetrics and Gynecology Scholars and Leaders Program.
Her current research program focuses on the development, assessment, and propagation of best educational practices of women’s health curricula. The resulting publications describe reproducible educational initiatives for teaching medical students, residents, or emerging reproductive health providers and demonstrate the educational outcomes affected by these new curricula. By creating, studying, and disseminating these much-needed educational innovations, this body of work allows other women’s health educators to bring this content to their own trainees.
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Jaclyn Chai, MPH, CRA, is Division Administrator for the Division of Women’s Health at BWH where she is responsible for overseeing research, educational and global health activities of the Division and the Connors Center for Women's Health and Gender Biology, as well as ensuring the advancement of the Women’s Health mission within BWH. She received her MPH from the Boston University School of Public Health and is a Certified Research Administrator. Her main interests are in working with junior faculty to support their career development, exploring global health issues, and developing women’s health leadership programs. Jaclyn has been in both leadership and administrative roles for global health-related programs for more than a decade. Prior to joining the Connors Center, she was a part of the initial team that expanded the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities (now the Division of Global Health Equity) at BWH, and led the establishment of Partners In Heath–Lesotho in 2006.
Kara Brown, MD, is Director of the Women's Mental Health Fellowship, a collaboration between the Department of Psychiatry and the Connors Center for Women's Health and Gender Biology, and Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Alisa Goldberg, MD, MPH, is Director of the Family Planning Fellowship at the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology and an Associate Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School.
Stephanie Kayden, MD, MPH, is the Director of the Global Women's Health Fellowship at the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology. She is the Chief of the Division of International Emergency Medicine and Humanitarian Programs at BWH as well as an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Assistant Professor of Global Health and Population at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Learn more about Dr. Kayden's work and the Global Women's Health Fellowship.
Elinor A. Mody, MD, is Medical Director of the Fish Center for Women’s Health at BWH and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mody also serves as Director of the Orthopaedic and Joint Disease Center in the Division of Women’s Health at BWH, which provides comprehensive care for women with bone and joint pain caused by arthritis, joint disease, sports injuries, and other orthopedic issues.
Learn more about the Fish Center for Women's Health.
Janet Rich-Edwards, ScD, MPH, is Director of Developmental Epidemiology at the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Dr. Rich-Edwards is leading the development of a family cohort/population database of sociodemographic information, medical history and biologic samples based on the 9,000 births at BWH each year, which will serve as an important resource for scientists across BWH and HMS. Her research focuses on determinants of women’s reproductive health across the lifecourse, as well as prenatal and childhood factors that affect the risk of developing chronic disease in adulthood.
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Paula A. Johnson, MD, MPH, is an internationally recognized cardiologist and leader in women’s health who has brought her broad range of experience as a researcher, educator, and expert in health care, public health, and health policy to bear in the effort to transform the health of women. Paula founded the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology and served as its Executive Director and Chief of the Division of Women’s Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital until June 2016.
She is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her research has impacted women across the United States through its influence on the implementation of health care reform and on the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease in women. The integrated model of care spearheaded by the Connors Center is being replicated globally. Paula is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, formerly the Institute of Medicine, and her vision, research, and ability to lead at the intersection of healthcare and public health has brought Paula key leadership roles in the local and national arena, including the Chair of the Board of the Boston Public Health Commission, member of the National Institutes of Health, NIH, Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health, and membership on numerous national and international boards.
She is also featured as a national leader in medicine by the National Library of Medicine and is the recipient of numerous awards recognizing her contributions in women’s health and public health. Her 2013 TED talk, “His and Her Healthcare”, was recently named by TED as one of the “Top 10 TED Talks by Women to be Viewed by Everyone” and has helped to raise awareness of the importance of sex differences to understanding women’s health. Paula attended Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, received her MD and MPH degrees from Harvard, and trained in internal medicine and cardiovascular medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Jill M. Goldstein, PhD, served as Director of Research at the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology at BWH. She is a Professor of Psychiatry and of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and serves as Director of Research on Gender Neurobiology and Women’s Mental Health in the Department of Psychiatry at BWH.
As a clinical neuroscientist with doctoral training in psychiatric epidemiology and psychopathology at Columbia University, and post-doctoral training in clinical neuroscience and brain imaging at HMS, Dr. Goldstein is an internationally recognized expert in understanding sex differences in health and diseases associated with the central nervous system. Specifically, Dr. Goldstein’s investigations have focused on characterizing sex differences in the development and adult functioning of the human brain and how these differences contribute to understanding sex differences in psychiatric and neurologic disorders and their comorbidity with general medical disorders.
