The UNC-Chapel Hill Women’s Reproductive Health Research (WRHR) Career Development Program is proud to announce the appointment of two Ob-Gyn clinician-scientists, starting June 1. Dr. Lauren Kucirka and Dr. Ben Albright are the first new scholars to be appointed since the WRHR Career Award was successfully renewed.
Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the primary goal of this initiative is to provide early career faculty with state-of-the-art training in women’s reproductive health research in an academic setting and to increase the research capacity among clinically trained Ob-Gyns. The program supports each scholar for a minimum of two years during which they will receive funding and protected time for research efforts and professional development opportunities.
Lauren Kucirka, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor, Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine | Assistant Professor, School of Data Science and Society 
Lauren Kucirka is a maternal-fetal medicine physician and epidemiologist with more than 15 years of experience designing and conducting large data studies to inform clinical practice. Dr. Kucirka’s research interests include improving big data analytics in maternal fetal medicine, understanding and mitigating health disparities, renal disease and transplantation in pregnancy, infectious diseases, and the intersection of public health and clinical medicine.
Preeclampsia is a leading cause of maternal morbidity and mortality, yet major gaps remain in understanding basic pathophysiology. The goal of Dr. Kucirka’s WRHR project is to use AI and machine-learning techniques to identify distinct preeclampsia subtypes and examine their impact on maternal and fetal outcomes.
As a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, I see firsthand how preeclampsia impacts my patients as a leading cause of maternal morbidity, mortality, and preterm birth. There are many unanswered questions regarding the underlying pathophysiology and heterogeneity of clinical presentations—why do some patients develop kidney failure at 20 weeks gestation while others present postpartum with primarily neurologic symptoms? My research aims to use AI and machine learning techniques to develop data science tools that facilitate large-scale preeclampsia research. I will then apply these tools to national electronic medical record data to identify distinct clinical subtypes of preeclampsia and better understand their impact on pregnancy and long-term health outcomes. – Lauren Kucirka
Ben Albright, MD, MS
Assistant Professor, Division of Gynecology Oncology | Associate Member, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, Cancer Prevention and Control Program
Ben Albright is a gynecologic oncologist, clinical educator, and clinical and health services researcher. Dr. Albright’s research focus is on health services and outcomes research, particularly as it pertains to the intersection of health policy and clinical care, for gynecologic cancers.
In the U.S., endometrial cancer is the fourth most common cancer of women and typically presents with an easily identifiable symptom of abnormal bleeding, yet no effective screening algorithm has been identified, routes to diagnosis are widely variable, and incidence and mortality are rising in recent years. Through the support of the WRHR program, Dr. Albright aims to model potential screening strategies for endometrial cancer, and to use complementary data sources and analytic approaches to define current diagnostic care patterns with the aim of identifying inefficiencies in diagnosis and treatment initiation for endometrial cancer and its precursors earlier.
In my first few years of clinical practice at UNC, caring for the women of North Carolina, I am continually struck by the widely variable and often complicated routes to diagnosis and treatment initiation for endometrial cancer. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to grow within the WRHR program and learn from an incredible mentorship team with Dr. Victoria Bae-Jump, Professor Caroline Thompson, and Dr. Laura Havrilesky, seeking to develop my research skills and gain important insights into ways to diagnose endometrial cancer more efficiently. – Ben Albright
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. UNC-Chapel Hill is one of 14 Ob-Gyn departments nationwide to receive this funding.