Sara Cichowski M.D.

During college I had the opportunity to live and study malaria transmission in Uganda for 6 months, this in part contributed to my desire to pursue a medical degree. During medical school I rotated in Ob/Gyn at a rural Kenyan teaching hospital. After completing an Ob/Gyn residency I then had the privilege to work for over 2 years at that same Kenyan hospital providing care and teaching Kenyan medical students, interns and residents. I returned to the States to complete a FPMRS fellowship and through connections during my time in Kenya have been able to teach surgical skills in hospital in Malawi, Burundi and Kenya.

Maureen K. Baldwin, M.D., M.P.H.

Maureen K. Baldwin, MD MPH is an Ob/Gyn physician specialist in Family Planning and is Assistant Professor at OHSU in the Department of Ob/Gyn, Family Planning Section. Her research focuses on safety and acceptability of provision of postpartum contraception, early abortion safety and clinical practices, and biomarkers of early intrauterine and ectopic pregnancy. Her projects have included clinical trials, retrospective cohort analyses, and basic science. Dr. Baldwin has global experience in trainings for abortion clinical care in Nepal and Ukraine, in collaboration with Ipas and WHO. Her research has been supported by the Society of Family Planning. She was the Principal Investigator for a prospective cohort study of postpartum contraception in Colombia that provided standardized contraceptive counseling during the maternity hospitalization, and immediate provision of long-acting reversible contraception. Dr. Baldwin has a career goal of research implementation to directly influence clinical practice and policy change. She is committed to decreasing the domestic and global unmet need for contraception to help women achieve their educational goals and improve maternal and child health.  

Future research in Colombia may include improving the safety of post-abortion care and assessment of myths about contraception. We are currently providing unsupported exchanges between Ob/Gyn residents in Colombia and OHSU on a select basis.  

Blair Darney, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Blair G. Darney, PhD, MPH, is a reproductive health services researcher and Assistant Professor in the OHSU Dept of OB/Gyn, Family Planning Section and OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, Health Systems and Policy Division. Her work focuses on obstetric outcomes, maternal mortality, contraception, and abortion. She primarily engages in secondary analyses of existing data but also has experience with intervention and feasibility studies. Dr. Darney has domestic and global projects and partnerships. Her global work focuses to access to safe abortion, quality of contraceptive services, and adolescent fertility in Mexico and Latin America. She also has long-term community-based program experience in Francophone West Africa. Dr. Darney’s domestic work focuses on immigrant access to insurance and health care services, the US “safety net” clinic system, ACA, Title X, and other policies and programs designed to expand access to reproductive healthcare for underserved populations. She is committed to building research capacity in Mexico and globally; she mentors students and trainees in the US and Mexico, including serving as a mentor for the PSU BUILD EXITO program to increase diversity in science. The overarching goal of her work is to generate evidence to inform evidence-based provision of reproductive health services to poor women around the globe, and ultimately, support all women to be the primary decision-makers about their reproductive lives, improve the quality of public health services, and reduce morbidity and mortality. View Dr. Darney’s publications.

Alison Edelman, M.D., M.P.H.

Alison Edelman is a Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), the Director of the Family Planning Fellowship, the Director of the Section of Family Planning, and a Collaborative Associate Scientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center. She completed a Masters in Public Health at the University of Washington, Seattle. Dr. Edelman is an active clinician scientist with independent research funding.

Additionally for over the last 20 years as part of her position at OHSU, Dr. Edelman has worked internationally as a technical consultant in reproductive health to develop and implement curriculum, develop and support research, provide technical support and train medical personnel, design standard operating procedures and perform quality assurance audits, and to create and support service delivery programs in Africa (South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Benin), Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, India, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Indonesia), and Europe (Russia) for the improvement in maternal morbidity and mortality.

The nonprofit agencies she works with have permitted Dr. Edelman to mentor family planning fellows during many of the activities at the country level. Dr. Edelman has a number of additional leadership positions including Lead Editor of the Cochrane Fertility Regulation Review Group, Associate Editor of the journal, Contraception, member of the expert working group for the Centers for Disease Control Medical Eligibility Criteria (MEC) for Contraceptive Use as well as the Selective Practice Guidelines for Contraceptive Use and she is the only U.S. based member of the World Health Organization’s steering committee for the MEC.

Maria Rodriguez, M.D., M.P.H.

Following her fellowship in family planning (UCSF ’10) Dr Rodriguez began working with the World Health Organization’s Department of Reproductive Health and Research. Her global efforts focus on research and policy initiatives to improve access to contraceptives and safe abortion services. Her research includes topics such as: evaluating the impact of legalization of abortion in Colombia, preventing rapid, repeat adolescent pregnancy, novel technologies for postpartum hemorrhage management, minimizing obstetric consequences of female genital mutilation and others. She led the development of the WHO guidelines “Ensuring human rights in the provision of contraceptive information and services,” and participated in updates to other WHO contraceptive guidelines. Maria is currently working with the WHO on updating safe abortion guidelines. She is the PI on a study developing a novel device to treat postpartum hemorrhage in Zambia.