The Women’s Reproductive Health Research (WRHR) Career Development Program at UNC-Chapel Hill has been renewed for a five-year term. This National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiative’s primary goal is to provide Ob-Gyn junior faculty with state-of-the-art training in women’s reproductive health research in an academic setting and to increase the research capacity of clinically trained Ob-Gyns.
Led by Principal Investigators Benjamin Chi, MD, MSc, and Genevieve Neal-Perry, MD, PhD; Recruiting Officers Victoria Bae-Jump, MD, PhD, and Kim Boggess, MD; and Program Advisor Kavita Arora, MD, MBE, MS, the overarching goal of the UNC WRHR Program is to support mentored research through the following aims:
- To catalyze the early career development of promising Ob-Gyn clinician investigators in women’s reproductive health research through mentorship, collaboration, and tailored skills building
- To enhance engagement of Ob-Gyn researchers in multidisciplinary and translational team-based science within and outside of the UNC Department of Ob-Gyn
- To advance women’s reproductive health through the design, conduct, and dissemination of cutting-edge research in areas aligned with NIH scientific priorities
“At UNC, we have seen firsthand how such resources can launch academic research careers,” says Chi. “We are delighted to continue this work for another five years.”
UNC-Chapel Hill has previously been chosen as a WRHR site in 2005-2010 and again starting in 2020. The current award is funded through 2030 and will be administered by the Center for Women’s Health Research within the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
In addition to supporting Ob-Gyn clinician-researchers at our institution, the UNC WRHR Program has contributed to the broader program initiative, having coordinated a quarterly “WRHR Wednesdays” seminar promoting professional networking and career development across all WRHR-funded sites as well as hosting the 2024 WRHR National Retreat in Chapel Hill last November.
The WRHR Program is funded through the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Gynecologic Health and Disease Branch and co-sponsored by the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health as part of NICHD’s K12 Institutional Career Development Program.