Officers
- Melissa Gilliam, MD, MPH—President
- Carolyn Westhoff, MD, MSc—President-Elect
- Stephanie Teal, MD, MPH—Secretary
- Eve Espey, MD, MPH, Treasurer
- Mark Nichols, MD—Immediate Past President
At-large members
- Carrie Cwiak, MD
- Lawrence Finer, PhD
- Bryna Harwood, MD, MSc
- Michelle Isley, MD, MPH
- Tessa Madden, MD, MPH
- James Trussell, PhD
- Tracy Weitz, PhD, MPA
- Beverly Winikoff, MD, MPH
- Nikki Zite, MD, MPH
In memoriam
Melissa Gilliam, MD, MPH (President), Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Chief of the Division of Family Planning and Contraceptive Research, and Director of the Fellowship in Family Planning, University of Chicago. With degrees in English literature, philosophy and politics, Dr. Gilliam’s research takes a broad approach to the study of family planning. She employs social science, qualitative and quantitative techniques to explore contraceptive behaviors with a particular interest in postpartum contraceptive use and contraceptive use and attitudes toward pregnancy among low-income African-American and Latino/a adolescents and. She is funded by private foundations, The National Institute of Health, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Centers for Disease Control. Dr. Gilliam’s clinical interest is in pediatric and adolescent gynecology. She currently serves on the Editorial Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and chairs the Board of Directors of the Guttmacher Institute. She received her BA from Yale University, MA from Oxford University, MD from Harvard University.
Carolyn Westhoff, MD, MSc (President-Elect), Professor and Director, Division of Family Planning and Preventive Services, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Columbia University Medical Center; Professor of Epidemiology and Population & Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Dr. Westhoff is a graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School. She completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at S.U.N.Y. Downstate Medical Center and received a M.Sc. in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Dr. Westhoff was a founding member of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health and a founding fellow of the Society for Family Planning. In addition to practicing as an attending physician at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Dr. Westhoff has served as principal investigator on numerous research studies and has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles. Dr. Westhoff is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. She was awarded the Society of Family Planning Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010.
Stephanie Teal, MD, MPH (Secretary), Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Pediatrics, University of Colorado, Denver School of Medicine. Stephanie Teal joined the faculty of the University of Colorado in 1998, after completing her residency at the University of California, San Diego. In 2001, she left to pursue a fellowship in Family Planning Clinical Care and Research at Columbia University, returning to the University of Colorado in 2003. Her clinical and research interests are in contraception for women with complex medical issues, adolescent health, and family planning. Dr. Teal earned her MD in 1994 at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and her MPH at Columbia University in New York. She is Board Certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Eve Espey, MD, MPH (Treasurer), Associate Dean of Students, School of Medicine, and Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of New Mexico. Eve Espey has a dual interest in family planning/abortion as well as medical student education. She has actively promoted inclusion of family planning and abortion in the medical school curriculum both locally and nationally. She serves on the undergraduate medical education committee of the Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics and on the Committee for Underserved Women of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She also serves on the board of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health and NARAL Pro-Choice New Mexico. She received her MD and completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology from the University of California, Irvine, and completed her Masters in Public Health at the University of Washington.
Mark Nichols, MD (Immediate Past President), Professor and Division Head, General Gynecology and Obstetrics, Oregon Health Sciences University. In addition to heading the division of General Gynecology and Obstetrics, Mark Nichols is Director of the Family Planning Fellowship at OHSU. He also serves as Medical Director for Planned Parenthood of the Columbia Willamette, and was a member of the National Medical Committee of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America from 1996 to 2002. His research interests are in teaching medical students and residents in family planning and abortion, reduction of pain during surgical abortion, and hormonal contraception. Dr. Nichols received his MD from University of California, Davis, and performed his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health Sciences University.
Carrie Cwiak, MD, MPH, Associate Professor, Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics; Division Director, Family Planning; Director, Family Planning Fellowship; Medical Director, Grady Health System Family Planning Clinic, Emory University. Dr. Cwiak's research interests include developing tools to teach contraception to students and clinicians, improving access and effective use of contraception and emergency contraception, contraception in the postpartum period, and medical abortion. In 2007, she was awarded the APGO Excellence in Teaching Award. She received her MD from the Saint Louis University School of Medicine and a Masters in Public Health in Epidemiology from Emory University. She performed her residency at the University of Connecticut Health Center and also completed a fellowship in family planning at the Emory University School of Medicine.
Lawrence B. Finer, PhD, Director of Domestic Research, Guttmacher Institute. Lawrence Finer supervises the Guttmacher Institute’s research portfolio of U.S.-focused projects on family planning services, contraceptive use patterns, pregnancy and abortion, and adolescent reproductive health. He also serves as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. In 2004, he received the Outstanding Young Professional Award from the Population, Family Planning and Reproductive Health Section of the American Public Health Association. Dr. Finer has authored work on premarital sex, women's reasons for seeking abortion, multiple sexual partnerships and risk for sexually transmitted diseases, the services provided by U.S. family planning agencies and clinics, men’s reproductive health, and the timing of first family planning visits. He received his A.B. in psychology from Harvard and his Ph.D. in population dynamics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.
Bryna Harwood, MD, MSc, Assistant Professor, Director of the Section of Family Planning and Director of the Family Planning Fellowship, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Illinois at Chicago. Prior to moving to the University of Illinois at Chicago, Bryna Harwood served for five years as Assistant Director of the Family Planning Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. She has collaborated on clinical trials on the safety and efficacy of new methods of contraception and microbicide clinical trials, and has a long history of collaboration and leadership on clinical trials on the safety and efficacy of new methods of contraception and evaluation of gynecologic safety in microbicide trials. In January 2008, Dr. Harwood was named a Scholar in the Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health Program funded by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Harwood received her MD at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. She completed her residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco.
Michelle Isley, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor in the Division of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Ohio State University. Michelle Isley is the Junior Fellow representative on SFP’s board. She received her MD in 2002 from the University of Minnesota Medical School and completed her residency at the Ohio State University Medical Center. From 2006 to 2008, she was a Fellow at the Oregon Health and Science University; in 2008, she earned an MPH in epidemiology and biostatistics from OHSU. Her major research and clinical interests include general obstetrics and gynecology; family planning in general, with a specific interest in postpartum contraception; global family planning, sexual education and contraception in adolescents; and resident and medical student education and training in contraception and abortion services.
Tessa Madden MD, MPH, Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of Fellowship in Family Planning, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, School of Medicine, Washington University in Saint Louis. Tessa Madden graduated from Washington University School of Medicine in 2001 and completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia University New York-Presbyterian Hospital in 2005. She then obtained her Masters in Public Health and completed a Fellowship in Family Planning and Contraception at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her research interests include progestin contraceptives and management of irregular bleeding, contraceptive selection and continuation, and post-abortion contraception. She also has a strong interest in policy and advocacy and participated in the Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health Leadership Training Initiative Program.
James Trussell, PhD, Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and Director of the Office of Population Research, Princeton University. James Trussell is the author or co-author of more than 200 scientific publications, primarily in the areas of reproductive health and demographic methodology. His recent research has been focused in three areas: emergency contraception, contraceptive failure, and the cost-effectiveness of contraception. He has actively promoted making emergency contraception more widely available as an important step in helping women reduce their risk of unintended pregnancy; in addition to his research on this topic, he maintains an emergency contraception website (not-2-late.com) and designed and launched a toll-free emergency contraception hotline (1-888-NOT-2-LATE). He is a Senior Fellow at the Guttmacher Institute and a member of the Board of Directors of the NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation and The Guttmacher Institute, and a member of the National Medical Committee of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. He serves on the editorial advisory committees of Contraception and Contraceptive Technology Update. Dr. Trussell received a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University.
Tracy Weitz, PhD, MPA, Director, ANSIRH (Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health), Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Weitz is a medical sociologist and an Associate Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences. Her passion is for those aspects of women’s health that are marginalized either for ideological reasons or because the populations affected lack the means or mechanisms to have their concerns raised. Dr. Weitz’s current research focuses on innovative strategies to expand abortion provision in the United States. She also serves as the Associate Director for Public Policy at the UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health, and was its founding executive director over a decade ago. In 2006, Dr. Weitz was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to the Women’s Health Council (2006-2010), an advisory body to the California Departments of Health Care Service and Public Health. She is a current board member of the ACLU of Northern California and Breast Cancer Action. In 1999, she received the UCSF Chancellor’s Award for the Advancement of Women and in 2006 the Felicia Stewart Award from the Population, Reproductive and Sexual Health section of the American Public Health Association. She has an MA degree in public administration with an emphasis in health care from Missouri State University and a PhD in sociology from the University of California, San Francisco.
Beverly Winikoff, MD, MPH, President, Gynuity Health Projects; Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Before beginning work on Gynuity, Dr. Winikoff was employed for 25 years at the Population Council, where she was Director for Reproductive Health and a Senior Medical Associate. While there, she developed and managed the Council’s Ebert Program on Critical Issues in Reproductive Health, including work on Safe Motherhood, prevention of STDs/AIDS, prevention of unsafe abortion, provision of safe abortion care, and improving postpartum care for mothers and babies. Prior to joining the Council in 1978, she was Assistant Director for Health Sciences at the Rockefeller Foundation. Her work has focused on issues of reproductive choice, contraception, abortion and women’s health. In addition, she has served on numerous boards of directors, including the Reproductive Health Technologies Project (founding member), Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health (PRCH, founding member), the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), the National Abortion Federation, and The MediTeam Trust in South Africa. Dr. Winikoff earned her MD from New York University and her MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Nikki Zite, MD, MPH, Associate Professor and Residency Director, University of Tennessee (Knoxville) Graduate School of Medicine. Prior to her current appointment, Nikki Zite was Clinical Associate in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Cleveland Clinic and, earlier, Associate Director at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Her research and publications have concentrated on issues related to sterilization. She is an editor of Obstetrics and Gynecology for the Primary Care Physician and The Yearbook of Ob/Gyn. Her pilot study on risk factors for not obtaining a postpartum tubal ligation won the Young Investigator Award from the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals. Dr. Zite graduated from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in 1998 and completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Tennessee at Memphis in 2002. She holds a Masters in Public Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago and completed a Fellowship in Family Planning and Contraception there as well.
In Memoriam
Public health lost a great leader with the passing of Dr. Allan Rosenfield in October, 2008. Dr. Rosenfield, a member of SFP’s board until his death, served as Dean of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health from 1986 to 2008 and founder of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health. Dr. Rosenfield’s research, teaching and advocacy are world renowned and have been recognized by honorary awards too numerous to list here. He wrote extensively on domestic and international issues in the fields of population, women's reproductive health, maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS, human rights and health policy and developed major global initiatives on maternal mortality, reproductive health, women’s health and HIV/AIDS. In 2007, SFP created the Allan Rosenfield Award for Lifetime Contributions to International Family Planning in his honor.
