Stacie Geller, PhD
Director, Center for Research on Women and Gender, G William Arends Professor Obstetrics & Gynecology, BIRCWH Internal Advisory Board, Member
Center for Research on Women and Gender
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About
Stacie Geller, Ph.D. is G. William Arends Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Professor, Division of Academic internal Medicine, Department of Medicine at the University Of Illinois College Of Medicine. She is the Director of the UIC Center for Research on Women and Gender and the National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health. In her role as director of two UIC centers, she promotes collaborative multidisciplinary work related to women’s lives. Dr. Geller is a health services researcher and epidemiologist with expertise in women’s health, complementary and alternative medicine, and maternal mortality and morbidity. She has been the principal or co-investigator on over 25 funded research projects and has been the PI on 2 R01s. Dr. Geller has over 65 peer reviewed publications, 50 as first or senior author. Dr. Geller has conducted research related to maternal mortality and morbidity since 1999. As PI of a CDC/ASPH cooperative agreement to investigate factors associated with maternal mortality, she developed an innovative model for early identification of high-risk women that has been used nationally and internationally. Dr. Geller is a founding and continuing member of the Illinois Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which is responsible for review of preventability issues for all maternal deaths in the state. Dr. Geller’s international work in maternal mortality and morbidity began with a 5-year NICHD-funded randomized clinical trial comparing the use of oral misoprostol for prevention of postpartum hemorrhage in rural India. She is currently funded by Gynuity Health Projects and the Gates Foundation to conduct another community-based trial in rural India to compare two dosing strategies for the use of misoprostol to prevent postpartum hemorrhage. Dr. Geller is also collaborating with the MacArthur Foundation, the Millennium Villages Project and Pathfinder International to implement a continuum of care model to reduce PPH in India, Nigeria, and Ghana. She is currently mentoring several women’s health faculty members from UIC and Northwestern University who have interests in global women’s health.
Dr. Geller has been actively involved in leadership and mentoring activities for women and under-represented minorities on the UIC campus. Under her leadership, the UIC Women in Science and Engineering program received the 2011 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring from President Obama and the National Science Foundation. In recognition of her leadership and mentoring Dr. Geller received the 2010 Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Women’s Woman of the Year award.
In the past five years, Dr. Geller has mentored more than 20 junior faculty members, clinical postdoctoral fellows and PhD candidates. Prior to the UIC BIRCWH program’s funding, she (along with Dr. Hughes) established the Interdisciplinary Women’s Health Research (IWHR) program to provide senior faculty support to junior faculty interested in women’s health research. This program provided the opportunity for junior faculty scholars to be advised by an interdisciplinary group of senior women’s health research faculty and paired with two senior faculty mentors. Mentoring activities focused on developing research skills such as proposal development, methodology, preparation of materials for publication and presentation, and funding. Dr. Geller also serves on the advisory board for the CCTS REACH Mentoring Academy.
Dr. Geller’s leadership in women’s global health research was recognized in an invitation to present to the United Nations Commission on Population and Development in 2009. More recently, she was installed as Development Queen Mother of the Manso Nkwanta Traditional Area in Ghana by the Queen Mother and King of Manso Nkwanta to work toward the improvement of the education for women and girls and reducing teenage pregnancy.