President-Elect
Maureen Groer (USA)
University of Tennessee
I have been a member of ISRHML for many years and have served a term on the executive committee. I also served for many years on the United States Breastfeeding committee and am a member of the Expert Panel on Breastfeeding of the American Academy of Nursing. I am also a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Human Lactation. I have been to many ISRHML meetings where I have presented my various research studies on milk biology and lactation physiology. My background is as a nurse physiologist and academic scientist for over 40 years. I have been a program head, associate dean, and president of a small graduate college, but my great love has always been science and research. I was funded for over 20 years by NIH on projects that focused on women and children, and almost all projects had breastfeeding or maternal physiology as essential components. I have over 150 referred journal publications and I was elected a distinguished university professor at the University of South Florida, where I worked for 17 years. I recently joined the University of Tennessee, Knoxville as a research professor, with a major goal of developing scientific activities, and mentoring junior faculty.
Secretary
Janet Williams (USA)
University of Idaho
I am a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Animal, Veterinary and Food Sciences at the University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA. I was trained in animal science (BS and MS, Oklahoma State University, 1985 and 1987, respectively) and in bioinformatics and computational biology (PhD, University of Idaho, 2016). I have been working in the fields of nutrition, lactation biology, and milk research for over 20 years. My research focuses on understanding better the factors and mechanisms that influence milk composition and how milk composition is related to or impacts maternal, offspring, and human health. I am especially interested in exploring and elucidating host-microbe interactions and investigating how genetic variation affects milk composition and production. I have been a member of ISRHML since 2012, starting first as an associate member. When I returned to graduate school and when the ISRHML trainee interest group (TIG) was formed, I served on the first TIG governing board and was the 2nd TIG President (2017-2019). After transitioning to a full member, I have served as the ISRHML Newsletter co-editor (2021-2023) and was appointed as Secretary in February 2023 to complete the term of Dr. Sela who had stepped down.
Councilors
Meghan Azad (Canada)
University of Manitoba
I am a Professor of Pediatrics and Child Health at the University of Manitoba, where I hold a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Early Life Nutrition and the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease. My research program is focused on the role of infant nutrition and the microbiome in child growth, development and resilience. I co-Direct the Manitoba Interdisciplinary Lactation Centre (MILC, www.milcresearch.com) and lead the International Milk Composition (IMiC) Consortium. I serve as Deputy Director of the CHILD Cohort Study, a national pregnancy cohort following 3500 children to understand how early life experiences shape lifelong health. Research in my THRiVE Discovery Lab (www.thrivediscovery.ca) is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the US National Institutes of Health, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I have previously served on the ISRHML Executive Council and currently serve on the joint US/Canada Human Milk Composition Initiative. I am a Fellow of the CIFAR Humans and the Microbiome Program and an elected member of the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars. I received the ISRHML Ehrlich-Koldovsky Early Career Investigator Award (2018) and the International Human Milk Genomics Mid-Career Investigator Award (2020). I was named among the WXN Canada Top 100 Most Powerful Women (2020) and Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 (2021), and received the prestigious Steacie Award for Research in the Natural Sciences in Canada (2023).
Adwoa Gyamfi (Ghana)
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
By December 2004 I had graduated as a Registered General Nurse (Diploma) from the Nursing and Midwifery Training College, Agogo, Ghana. Subsequently, I served as a clinician at the Agogo Presbyterian Hospital. In July 2008, I completed a Top in Nursing Programme at the University of Ghana. My BSc. in Nursing degree was obtained in June 2011 from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana. Again, in June 2016, I returned to KNUST to earn a Master of Public Health degree. In May 2017, I completed a postgraduate degree in Education from the University of Education, Ghana. Between 2019 and 2022, I acquired a postgraduate degree in Clinical Genetics and Genomics (May 2021) as well as a PhD Nursing (May 2022) from the University of Connecticut (UCONN), United States of America. Immediately after the doctoral degree, I started a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Ghana, School of Public Health. I have won several grants and scholarships including the Family Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation Trainee Expansion Program, 2021 ISRHML Trainee Bridge Fund; Fogarty International Grants; PEO International Peace Scholarship; Margaret McNamara Education Grant, US-Canada Program; and Carolyn Ladd Widmer Award (UCONN).
Jonathan Seigel (USA)
WakeMed Health and Hospitals in Raleigh
I am a Neonatologist at WakeMed Heath and Hospitals in Raleigh, North Carolina. I completed my pediatric residency at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and neonatal-perinatal fellowship at Duke University after completing medical school at the University of Missouri-Columbia. I also earned a Master of Management in Clinical Informatics from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. I am a board-certified pediatrician, neonatologist, and clinical informaticist. I currently serve as a Neonatologist and Associate Chief Medical Information Officer at WakeMed Health and Hospitals. In addition to my clinical and informatics work, I participate in quality improvement work and research in the neonatal intensive care unit. My diverse interests include the impact of human milk on neonatal morbidities, clinical decision support, and documentation efficiency.