Oral Abstract Presenter Bios

Dr Anteneh Asefa
Anteneh is a health systems researcher specialising in maternal, sexual, reproductive, and child health. He completed his PhD at the Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne examining health system constraints to the promotion of respectful maternity care in low-resource settings and designing strategies to mitigate them. In 2022 and 2025, he received prestigious research fellowships from the Research Foundation–Flanders (Belgium) to: examine health system barriers to integrating perinatal mental health into maternal health services, and design and evaluate innovations integrating respectful maternity care and perinatal mental health into maternal health and PMTCT services in Ethiopia and Guinea.

Dr Sara Albuquerque
Dr Sara Albuquerque is a clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor at Lusófona University in Lisbon, Portugal. She holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the Universities of Coimbra and Lisbon, awarded with the European Doctorate distinction. Her research spans perinatal mental health, grief, trauma and family processes, with a strong focus on vulnerability, resilience and dyadic adjustment in contexts of loss and psychological adversity. She has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and collaborates on nationally and internationally funded projects examining perinatal PTSD, maternal mental health, stigma reduction and innovative psychological interventions, including digital and virtual reality approaches.

Dr Madeleine Benton
Dr Madeleine Benton is a Chartered Psychologist and NIHR Advanced Fellow in Perinatal Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London. Dr Benton leads innovative, interdisciplinary research at the intersection of maternal mental and physical health, with a strong commitment to reducing health inequalities through interdisciplinary collaboration.

Dr Elizabeth Bodunde
Dr Elizabeth Bodunde is a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Public Health, University College Cork. Her research employs mixed-methods designs to investigate complex health outcomes across the maternal health life course. Her work integrates quantitative epidemiological analyses, systematic evidence synthesis, and qualitative research methods to understand the long-term impacts of pregnancy and birth complications. To deepen understanding of women’s lived experiences, she conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with purposively sampled women who had experienced pregnancy and birth complications in Ireland. Using reflexive thematic analysis, the research identified key themes including expectation versus reality, unresolved consequences, healthcare experiences, and the role of support systems. This qualitative component provided contextual insight into how obstetric complications shape long-term mental health and wellbeing.

Dr Marko Breedt-Kriek
Dr. Marko Breedt-Kriek is a psychiatry registrar at the University of Pretoria, where he also completed his undergraduate medical training. He holds a Diploma in Mental Health from the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa. His interests include adolescent psychiatry, LGBTQIA+ mental health and peripartum mental health, shaped by early internship exposure at Livingstone Hospital and Dora Nginza Hospital in the Eastern Cape. He has worked in psychiatric services in the North-West at Bophelong Psychiatric Hospital, and in Johannesburg at Helen Joseph Hospital. He is committed to continuous learning and dedicated to delivering warm, compassionate and affirming care.

Dr Raquel Catalao
Dr Raquel Catalao is a psychiatrist and PhD candidate in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King´s College London. She has a long standing commitment to research on perinatal psychiatry, health inequities and health system strengthening interventions.

Dr Kaat De Backer
Dr Kaat De Backer is a midwife research fellow at the Department of Women and Children’s Health, King’s College London, with a clinical background as a specialist midwife in perinatal mental health and matron of a Mother and Baby Unit. Her research is focused on the intersection between maternity, mental health and social care.

Dr Zoë Darwin
Dr Zoë Darwin is an Associate Professor at the University of Huddersfield (UK), specialising in perinatal mental health and relationships in all parents and those pursuing parenthood. Her research focuses on widening access to acceptable, accessible and effective support for individuals and families. This includes a focus on identifying disparities and promoting equity. Dr Darwin’s work spans mild-to-severe and complex difficulties and is relevant to maternity, child health, community organisations, and specialist mental health and relationship services. She has written practice guidance for professionals and recorded app content for birthing and non-birthing parents.

Ms Saki Doi
Saki Doi is a Ph.D. student in Mental Health at the Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, and a qualified midwife with clinical experience. Her research focuses on childbirth-related traumatic experiences, postpartum post-traumatic stress disorder, and prevention strategies. She is involved in the International Survey of Childbirth-Related Trauma. She has developed and evaluated a trauma-informed care training program for midwives and is currently working toward its broader implementation and dissemination in maternity care settings. Her research received an award from the Japanese Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

Dr Jennifer Duffecy
Dr. Duffecy is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois Chicago, where she also serves as the Director of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Services and Research and the Director of the Resiliency Center for Medical Student Wellbeing. Her research focuses on developing interventions that utilize evidence-based behavioral interventions to address health and mental health concerns, with a focus on cognitive behavioral interventions.

Prof Susan Garthus-Niegel
Susan Garthus‑Niegel is a psychologist and full professor at the University of Dresden, Faculty of Medicine. She also holds part-time positions at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and the MSH Medical School Hamburg, where she heads the Epidemiology and Women’s and Family Health Research Unit. Together with her team, she conducts large-scale epidemiological cohort studies, such as the prospective population‑based DREAM study on maternal and paternal well‑being from pregnancy into childhood. Her work addresses heterogeneous trajectories of mental health symptoms, role distributions, work‑family conflict, and couple dynamics and how these shape family well-being and functioning over time. She applies advanced longitudinal and multimethod approaches to elucidate modifiable psychosocial risks and resilience factors. Her research ultimately aims to guide family‑focused preventive strategies and support services across the transition to parenthood.

Dr Sarah Harris
Dr Harris is a senior lecturer and child health researcher at the University of Otago, Department of Paediatrics. Sarah’s research interests focus on ensuring children have the best start in life. She is the paediatrician leading a First 2000 Days programme at Etu Pasifika – a Pasifika primary care service – aiming to reduce inequities in child outcomes. Sarah also leads the New Zealand Very Low Birth Weight Study, investigating the long-term health effects of premature birth including the impact on cardiovascular health. She has 12 years experience in perinatal mental health working at an inpatient Mother-Baby Unit.

Dr Catriona Hippman
Catriona Hippman, PhD, CGC, (she/her) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the BC Women’s Hospital’s Reproductive Mental Health Program. She is also an Adjunct Professor with the UBC Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and a Health System Impact Fellow with Simon Fraser University. Overall, her work focuses on mental health at times of transition in relation to changes in hormones, physiology, and family composition through feminist, person-centred research and advocacy for equitable access to mental health services.

Ms Ruth Jinad
Ruth is a PhD candidate at the University of Leeds researching health inequalities in perinatal mental health. Her work focuses on identifying and evaluating interventions to improve perinatal mental health systems and outcomes for women at increased risk of adverse birth outcomes, particularly among racially minoritised groups in the UK. She has a background in public health, and has previously completed funded postgraduate studies. Ruth’s research interests include perinatal mental health, health inequalities, and equitable health systems. Alongside her academic work, she is passionate about mentoring students and engaging in community initiatives that promote health and wellbeing. Her work seeks to contribute to more inclusive and responsive health systems.

Prof Inês Jongenelen
Inês Jongenelen (PhD in Clinical Psychology) is an Associate Professor at Lusofona University. Director of School of Psychology and Health Sciences (Lisbon) and Faculty of Psychology, Education and Sports (Porto). Director of PhD in Clinical Psychology, and Deputy Director of the HEI-Lab. Research interests in parenting, child development, intimate partner violence and adjustment in IPV-exposed families and other risk groups. PI and team member on several funded projects (FCT, LaCaixa).

Dr Sigridur Sia Jonsdottir
Dr. Sigridur Sia Jonsdottir is an associate professor at the nursing department at the University of Akureyri, Iceland. She holds a PhD from the Linnaeus University in Sweden. She is the current chair of the Nordic Marcé chapter og the Marcé Society. Her main research focus is mental wellbeing of expectant parents during pregnancy. She held a clinical position as a director of a high-risk perinatal clinic before pursuing the academic career some years ago.

Mrs Sawako Kamo
Sawako Kamo is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Mental Health at the Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo. She is a medical doctor with clinical experience in dermatology and obtained a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the School of Public Health (SPH) at the University of Tokyo. Her main research interests include perinatal mental health, environmental determinants of mental health, and occupational mental health. Her doctoral research investigates the impact of environmental factors on perinatal mental health, with a particular focus on climate-related factors.

Prof Gaotswake Patience Kovane
Gaotswake Patience Kovane is a dedicated mental health nurse who holds two master’s degrees in nursing, one specializing in Advanced Psychiatric Nursing, and a PhD in Nursing Science focused on maternal health. Her advanced training in psychiatric nursing and doctoral research underpin her strong focus on perinatal mental health. Committed to improving maternal outcomes for women in low- to middle-income settings, she founded the Mosadi Thari Trust in Botswana to empower and support perinatal women. She has successfully supervised master’s and Ph.D. postgraduate students and secured funding from reputable institutions.

Dr Sandraluz Lara-Cinisomo
Sandraluz Lara-Cinisomo, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on addressing mental health disparities in racial and ethnic minorities and immigrant women. Her research approach emphasizes psychosocial, cultural, structural, and physiological factors. Specifically, Dr. Lara-Cinisomo examines how contextual factors are associated with poor mental health in her populations of interest, taking an integrated approach to understanding mental health disparities in perinatal women. She has examined hormonal factors associated with perinatal depression and anxiety. Her research also explores the associations between postpartum pain and depression.

Dr Michele Levine
Michele D. Levine, PhD, a licensed clinical and health psychologist, is Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology and Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Levine directs the Perinatal Health and Behaviors Lab which focuses on relationships among health behaviors and mental health across pregnancy and the postpartum period. Her clinical research activities have been designed to elucidate the biological, psychosocial, and behavioral factors that impact the health of birthing people and to develop, evaluate, and implement interventions to promote perinatal health.

Dr Qing Li
Qing Li, MD, DrPH is a certified relationship educator and an OB/GYN-trained perinatal and injury epidemiologist. She holds a Doctor of Public Health degree in Maternal and Child Health from University of Alabama at Birmingham. She trained OB/GYNs in China on safe delivery practices and in Mississippi on intimate partner violence screening. Her work focuses on building transdisciplinary translational teams and integrated data systems, evaluating culturally tailored preventive interventions, public health laws, collaborative quality improvement, and integrated systems of care, preventing violence and pregnancy-associated homicide and suicide, and promoting safe motherhood, health equity, mental and relational health, and family resilience.

Dr Jessica Liddell
Dr. Jessica Liddell is an Associate Professor at the University of Montana School of Social Work and Affiliate Faculty in the School of Public and Community Health Sciences. Her work focuses on pregnancy and childbirth, reproductive justice issues, birth justice and equity, community engagement, and making healthcare systems more equitable. Her current research focuses on the use of doulas to improve maternal and infant health outcomes in Montana. Her experiences as a doula and as a mother inform her research and drive her passion for this work.

Dr Tamara Mackroy
Dr. Tamara Mackroy is Founder and President of Maternal Matters Favored, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing community integrated models for maternal mental health prevention and recovery. She holds a doctorate in Counseling Psychology and specializes in trauma informed postpartum stabilization, substance use recovery integration, and systems level program design. Dr. Mackroy develops structured interventions that bridge clinical screening and sustained community support for mothers. Her work emphasizes peer informed care, relapse prevention frameworks, and coordinated service navigation to reduce fragmentation across maternal mental health systems. She regularly speaks on prevention science, implementation strategy, and policy informed maternal mental health innovation.

Ms Floriana Milazzo
Floriana Milazzo is a biostatistician and clinical research coordinator at the Women’s Mental Health Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She received her MPH in epidemiology in 2022 from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and her BA in English literature from Barnard College in 2021. Her research focuses on perinatal mental health among women with severe mental illness and maternal immune activation, with emphasis on the prenatal period as a critical neurodevelopmental window. As an aspiring physician-researcher, she hopes to blend humanistic, life course, and intergenerational perspectives to better understand and improve reproductive and psychiatric health outcomes.

Dr Madhuri H Nanjundaswamy
Dr. Madhuri H. Nanjundaswamy is a psychiatrist specialising in women’s mental health and perinatal psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in women’s mental health and has extensive clinical and research experience in perinatal mental health, reproductive psychiatry, and the mother–infant dyadic relationship. Her work focuses on understanding the impact of maternal mental health on infant development and improving access to mental health care for women. She has been actively involved in national initiatives such as Tele MANAS, contributing to research, training, and service delivery in digital mental health programs in India.

Mrs Evah Ncube
Evah Ncube is an Australian based Midwife, Perinatal Mental Health Nurse, Registered Nurse, and a Master of Research candidate under examination at Western Sydney University. Her research examines trauma informed midwifery care to improve outcomes for women and infants affected by trauma and mental illness. Born and raised in Africa, she is committed to advancing perinatal mental health, particularly in her home continent where cultural stigma limits mental health care. A mother and clinician, her lived experience drives her passion for compassionate, evidence based practice. She was recognised on the 2023 Dean’s Merit List and has received an offer of a doctoral scholarship.

Prof Daisuke Nishi
Daisuke Nishi is a Professor in the Department of Mental Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo. After gaining clinical experience as a psychiatrist, he has led and contributed to a number of cohort studies and randomized controlled trials. His primary research interests include mental health epidemiology, perinatal mental health, and traumatic stress and resilience. In the field of perinatal mental health, he has developed and implemented an internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy program for the prevention of depression among pregnant women, and has also created trauma-informed care video programs for midwives.

Dr Pamela Norcross
Dr. Pamela Norcross is an Associate Professor in Child Development at Meredith College. Her research interest incudes effects of maternal depression, infant development, and early parenting relationships. Her current NIMH-funded research examines the effects of a group prenatal care program, Centering Pregnancy, and its effects on maternal mood disorders during pregnancy and the postpartum period.

Dr Betty-Shannon Prevatt
Betty-Shannon Prevatt is a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor at Meredith College. After a decade of clinical practice specializing in reproductive mental health, Dr. Prevatt returned to academia to pursue research, teaching, and mentoring. Dr. Prevatt’s current research interests focus on developing evidence-based interventions for improving maternal mental health. She is particularly interested in examining the needs and experiences of mothers who belong to marginalized groups.

Dr Chinyere N. Reid
Dr. Chinyere N. Reid is a Postdoctoral Associate in Women’s Health at the University of Florida College of Medicine – Jacksonville. Her research integrates clinical medicine and public health to improve outcomes for underserved populations across the reproductive lifespan. Dr. Reid specializes in mixed-methods evaluations of systems-level care, with specific expertise in perinatal mental health, substance use, and access to care. She earned her medical degree from the University of the West Indies (Mona), her Master of Public Health from the University at Albany, SUNY, and her PhD in Public Health from the University of South Florida.

Dr Teresa Reis
Dr. Teresa Reis is a psychiatrist and researcher with a PhD in Medicine, specializing in perinatal mental health. She leads the Perinatal Mental Health Program at the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health of the Alentejo Central Local Health Unit. Dr. Teresa Reis is a PhD-level integrated member of the Comprehensive Health Research Centre (CHRC), where she contributes to advancing research in mental health.

Dr Marinthea Richter
Marinthea Richter, PhD, OTR/L is a lecturer at University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. After earning her Bachelor’s Degree in Occupational Therapy (2012) from the University of Pretoria, she worked at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, focusing on neonatal and neurodevelopmental care. She achieved her Master’s Degree in Early Childhood Intervention (2017) from the University of Pretoria. Eager to expand her expertise, she traveled to the United States as a Fulbright Student to pursue a Post-professional Occupational Therapy Doctorate (2020) and Ph.D. (2025) at the University of Southern California. Her research focuses on parent-infant co-occupations in the NICU.

Dr Gail Erlick Robinson
Dr. Gail Erlick Robinson is a Professor of Psychiatry and Obstetrics/Gynaecology at the University of Toronto where she co-founded the Women’s Mental Health Program. She received the Alexandra Symond’s Award from the American Psychiatric Association for outstanding and sustained contributions to women’s mental health and the advancement of Women. In 2013, she was appointed to the Order of Ontario and, in 2017, she received the Order of Canada for her work concerning the mental and physical health of women. She is vice-chair of the WPA’s Women’s Mental Health section and President-elect of the Group for Advancement of Psychiatry.

Mr Mukhtar Sani
Mukhtar Sani is a seasoned public health expert with over a decade of experience leading Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (SRMNCH) initiatives in Nigeria. He has played a critical role in designing and implementing innovative models such as Group Antenatal Care (G-ANC) and integrating maternal mental health into primary healthcare systems. Mukhtar has represented his organization and government partners at international conferences. He combines technical rigor, data-driven decision-making, and strategic stakeholder engagement to strengthen health systems and improve maternal and newborn outcomes across multiple states in Nigeria.

Dr John Soehl
John Soehl is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine. His research interests are focused on perinatal mental health, specifically for pregnant individuals experiencing antenatal hospitalization due to pregnancy-related complications. He has presented prior work at the Marce’ of North America conferences in 2023 and 2025. His fellowship thesis explored adapting the Labour Agentry Scale to an antepartum setting and evaluated how an individual’s sense of “agentry” may inversely correlate with symptoms of anxiety or depression during an antenatal hospitalization as well as postpartum.

Dr Sara Statucki
Dr. med. Sara Statucki studied medicine in Bonn and wrote her doctoral thesis at the Institute of Forensic Medicine there. She completed the majority of her specialist training at the Department of psychiatry an psychotherapy of the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf/LVR, where she has worked since 2014. She is a specialist in an outpatient clinic focusing on affective disorders. Since the end of 2023, she has been heading the newly established specialist outpatient clinic for mental disorders during pregnancy and lactation.

Ms Maggie Thurer
Maggie Thurer is a PhD student at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London. Her research, which explores the use of crisis planning interventions within perinatal mental health care, is supported through an ESRC LISS DTP Studentship. She is supervised by Prof Claire Henderson and Dr Abigail Easter. Prior to undertaking her PhD, Maggie worked across a range of public health and mental health settings in New York City and London, including the NYC Department of Health and NHS mental health services in east London. She has an MPH in Epidemiology from Columbia University.

Mrs Kim Vermaak
Kim Vermaak is a lived-experience advocate, TEDx speaker, and professional speaker who has faced postpartum depression with all three of her children. Her journey included the terrifying experience of intrusive thoughts of harming her baby, a reality that remains hidden for many mothers. Drawing on this lived experience, she combines personal insight with advocacy to illuminate the impact of childhood trauma on maternal mental health. As the author of Seven Letters, which includes guidance for women navigating unplanned pregnancies, and the forthcoming Taming the Monster of Postpartum Depression, Kim creates tools and fosters conversations that help communities support parents and reduce stigma.

Dr Cerith Waters
Dr Waters is Consultant Clinical Psychologist in Perinatal Mental Health in Cardiff and Vale University Health Board (UHB) and Director of Research for Clinical Psychology trainees in Cardiff University. Cerith has conducted research and worked clinically with parents and infants during the perinatal period for over 20 years. He currently leads the provision of psychological care and intervention for perinatal women, birthing people and families across specialist perinatal mental health services in Cardiff and Vale UHB. His research programme is focused on the development and implementation of psychological interventions for perinatal mental health in Wales and internationally.