Magaret Rabotnick, PhD, MPH is an in vitro developmental toxicologist and current postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Pediatrics at UC San Diego, where she works with the Human Milk Institute. Margaret currently serves as the Professional Development Chair. She earned her PhD in Toxicology and MPH in Environmental Health Sciences from the University of Michigan and her BS in Environmental Science from UCLA. Her interdisciplinary training spans mechanistic toxicology, exposure science, maternal-child health, reproductive biology, and human lactation.

Dr. Rabotnick’s research examines how environmental, nutritional, and pharmacologic exposures during lactation influence mammary gland function, human milk composition, and infant health. Her doctoral research investigated how endocrine-disrupting chemicals, particularly per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, alter placental signaling and maternal lipid metabolism during pregnancy. Her postdoctoral work expanded this focus to the lactation period, integrating human milk biospecimens with mechanistic mammary epithelial and infant adipocyte models to study milk composition and early-life metabolic programming.

Her current research focuses on developing a functional human mammary organoid platform that recapitulates key features of lactation biology. This model is being designed to investigate mechanisms regulating milk synthesis and secretion and to screen environmental chemicals, pharmaceuticals, dietary compounds, and other factors that may influence mammary function and milk composition. Her long-term goal is to develop human-relevant experimental tools that advance medication safety, exposure guidance, lactation science, and future innovation in human milk production and research.