From left, Teresa Janevic PhD, MPH, Leslee Shaw PhD, Siobhan Dolan MD, MPH

When Elizabeth Howell, MD, MPP, founded the Blavatnik Family Women’s Health Research Institute, she not only aimed to carve out institutional space at Mount Sinai devoted to addressing disparities in women’s health across the life course, but also aimed to train future leaders in women’s health care across interdisciplinary fields in science and medicine. The Institute developed and grew, now with more than 50 faculty members within the Health System who are passionate about women’s health issues.

So, when searching for new leadership last year after Dr. Howell was hired as the Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the Institute was delighted to recruit Leslee Shaw, PhD, to fill the role and lead the next chapter for the BFWHRI.

Leslee Shaw is an internationally recognized cardiovascular outcomes researcher, with a strong focus on women’s health that encompasses quality, equity, and evaluation of cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis in women.

Dr. Shaw earned her doctoral degree at Saint Louis University in Missouri and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University School of Medicine. She served on the Duke University faculty for several years before being recruited to Emory University in Atlanta. There, Dr. Shaw directed the Emory Clinical Cardiovascular Research Institute and was the R. Bruce Logue Professor of Medicine at Emory University.

Her strong commitment to mentoring and faculty development will serve her well as she collaborates with junior faculty in the BFWHRI. At Emory, she was Co-Director of Emory University’s T32 Training Program for Academic Investigators in Clinical Research. She was also Recruitment Director for the University’s K-12 training program, Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health, and received the Dean’s Distinguished Faculty Lecture and Award, the highest award offered by the Emory School of Medicine. Following Emory, Dr. Shaw served as endowed Professor of Health Services Research in Radiology and Director of the Dalio Institute of Cardiovascular Imaging at Weill Cornell Medicine.

With more than 750 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Shaw has been ranked by Thomson Reuters in the top one percent of clinical researchers with the most highly cited publications for more than a decade. Dr. Shaw has garnered considerable professional society recognition for her contributions. In 2020 alone, she received the Bernadine Healy Leadership in Women’s Cardiovascular Disease Award from the American College of Cardiology; the Nanette K. Wenger Award from the American Society of Preventive Cardiology; and the Distinguished Investigator Award from the Academy for Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research. Dr. Shaw sits on the Executive Committee of the Society for Cardiovascular Computed Tomography, having previously served on the Board of Directors and as President.

At Icahn Mount Sinai, Dr. Shaw will hold a triple primary appointment in Medicine (Cardiology), Population Health Science and Policy, and Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science. Through this arrangement, Dr. Shaw will be able to expand upon the Institute’s goals for interdisciplinary collaboration in women’s health. The Institute excitedly welcomed her as the Director on May 3.

Alongside Dr. Shaw’s appointment, the Institute also welcomes Siobhan Dolan, MD, MPH, as the Co-Director of the Institute. Dr. Dolan joined Mount Sinai in August 2020 as System Vice Chair for Research and Director of the Division of Genetics and Genomics within the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science.

Now, as the Co-Director of the Institute, she will collaborate with Dr. Shaw to mentor junior faculty and students as well as contribute to the interdisciplinary focus with her background in OBGYN, women’s health, genetics, and public health.

Dr. Dolan earned her BA from Brown University and her MD from Harvard Medical School. She did her OBGYN residency at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and Yale New Haven Hospital, followed by a fellowship in clinical genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center. She earned her Masters of Public Health from Columbia University, and will receive an MBA from Cornell SC Johnson Graduate School of Management and an MS in Healthcare Leadership from Weill Cornell Medicine in May, 2021.

As an OBGYN who is actively involved with organizations such as the March of Dimes, Centers for Disease Control, and the World Health Organization, Dr. Dolan is well positioned to co-direct the Institute in the progress towards women’s health equity. Her current work within the Institute has been focused on investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on perinatal outcomes as Co-PI of the Generation C study, funded by the Centers for Disease Control. Dr. Dolan has stepped up as an outstanding leader and mentor within the Institute during the leadership transition. The Institute looks forward to Dr. Dolan’s continued insights and contributions to lead in the progress toward health equity in women’s health.

Finally, Teresa Janevic, PhD, MPH, will be appointed as the Associate Director of the Institute. Dr. Janevic earned a MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at University of California, Berkeley. She later received a doctorate in Epidemiology from Columbia University, and then was a Jackson Institute of Foreign Affairs Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Yale University.

Dr. Janevic has been an integral part of the Institute since its beginning, leading research focused on the social determinants of maternal and infant health, including the impact of policy on immigrant women’s health, structural racism and neighborhood context in maternal and infant health, and racial-ethnic inequities in postpartum cardiometabolic health. Dr. Janevic is also passionate about teaching and mentoring future leaders in women’s health equity. Most recently, she developed and led the BFWHRI COVID-19 Research Roundtable, in which faculty members of the Institute shared their current research findings of the past year.

The Blavatnik Family Women’s Health Research Institute is proud and delighted to announce these three outstanding scientists as its new leaders, and is looking forward to the collaborations, progress, and scientific discovery that will be made with them and the rest of the members of this Institute.

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