Lecture Series
The Children’s Research Institute Lecture Series encourages interaction between researchers investigating childhood diseases, and stimulates new research through exposure to cutting-edge, ongoing work.
“Strategies for Actively Engaging Patients and Partners in Research and Program Design: Lessons from the Collaborative for Maternal and Infant Health”
April 14, 2026
12:00-1:00 pm
Mary Ellen Jones 3116 or Zoom
Dr. Wayne Price is a Professor and Associate Division Chief in the Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine within the Department of Pediatrics. 
Since 2010, he has served as Co-Director of the UNC Collaborative for Maternal & Infant Health. Dr. Price provides clinical care for infants in the Newborn Critical Care Center (UNC’s NICU) and works as part of a multidisciplinary team managing pregnancies complicated by fetal medical conditions. His professional interests focus on improving support for mothers of NICU patients. He is Co-PI on a CDC-funded initiative aimed at developing Best Practices for Postpartum NICU Care to enhance outcomes for families. Dr. Price earned his B.S. in Mathematics from Furman University and his M.D. from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. He completed his Pediatrics residency at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC, followed by a Neonatology fellowship at UNC. He has been a dedicated faculty member in the Department of Pediatrics since 1988.
Dr. Sarah Verbiest, DrPH, MPH, MSW has almost 3 decades of expertise, leadership, and research in maternal, child, and family well-being.
Dr. Verbiest is the director of the Jordan Institute for Families at UNC School of Social Work and the executive director of the Collaborative for Maternal and Infant Health at UNC School of Medicine. She supervises programs that serve clinics across North Carolina, serves on policy teams such as the Child Fatality Task Force, holds a robust research portfolio, and has convened statewide coalitions to address maternal and infant mortality disparities. Dr. Verbiest has successfully led complex mixed-methods research studies and leveraged the findings into clinical practice. She has co-led a federally-funded national training and technical assistance center where she provided leadership and coaching to maternal and child health programs across the country. She has edited four books, including Preconception Health and Care: A Lifecourse Perspective and the Maternal and Child Health textbook and has published over 45 articles. She leads the Show Your Love Today preconception health campaign and is currently focusing on preconception health for people with chronic conditions. She is also a co-founder of the 4th Trimester Project. Her emerging interests include caregiving across the lifecourse and mid-life women’s health.
Erin McClain is Assistant Director and Research Associate with CMIH, where she directs a variety of statewide perinatal training and technical assistance initiatives. 
She brings over 20 years of experience leading health systems change and quality improvement initiatives in areas including preterm birth prevention, safe infant sleep, perinatal incarceration, and implementation of evidence-based tobacco use screening and counseling for providers serving women of reproductive age, with a specialized focus on low-income and marginalized women. Ms. McClain also focuses broadly on the health of women of reproductive age, engaging in qualitative research with postpartum mothers and women with chronic conditions. She has her Master of Public Health in Maternal and Child Health from UNC-Chapel Hill. Ms. McClain previously worked with displaced women and families, both in the US and abroad, and she earned a Master of Arts in International Affairs from American University in Washington, DC.