4/2/25: The 8th Annual WHISPR Symposium

The Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology is pleased to announce the 8th Annual Women’s Health Interdisciplinary Stress Program of Research (WHISPR) Symposium. The Symposium will take place in the Marshall Wolf Conference Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025 from 3:30-5pm. It will feature Keynote Speaker Alfonso Abizaid, PhD. Stay tuned for information on the 2025 awardee and their presentation.

About Alfonso Abizaid, PhD:

Dr. Abizaid did his graduate training in behavioral neuroendocrinology at the Centre for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology at Concordia University under the supervision of Dr. Barbara Woodside. His PhD thesis centered on the study in the control of fertility in response to increase food demand during the postpartum period using preclinical models. Hi work was awarded the Governor General’s Medal for best PhD thesis at the University for the year 2002. Dr. Abizaid trained as a Postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Yale University School of Medicine under the supervision of Tamas Horvath where he conducted work understanding the impact of steroid hormones on the circadian system, and the role of the metabolic hormone ghrelin on the systems regulating food reward. His postdoctoral work was funded by the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Dr. Abizaid joined the Neuroscience Department at Carleton University as an assistant professor in the summer of 2006, was promoted in 2010 to Associate professor and to full professor in 2012. His lab is currently funded by NSERC, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), the Ontario Research (ORF) and the Canadian Fund for Innovation (CFI). Dr. Abizaid’s research is focused on the role of ghrelin in the regulation of energy balance in response to environmental challenges that include stress, the costs of reproduction, and the impact of aging in male and female mammals including humans. In addition, Dr. Abizaid is the Director of the Canadian Health Adaptations, Innovations, and Mobilization (CHAIM) Centre and the Carleton University Stress Trauma and Resilience (CUStar) work Group. These two groups are research centers focused on the promotion of interdisciplinary research and knowledge mobilization.

About WHISPR:

Established in January 2018, the Women’s Health Interdisciplinary Stress Program of Research (WHISPR) advances our understanding of how physiologic and psychological stress affect women’s health and disease, and vice versa, by supporting pilot projects, facilitating interactions among WHISPR investigators and other stress researchers, and hosting an annual scientific symposium for the BWH academic community.

The scope of proposed research includes clinical, translational, population, and basic research studies investigating interactions of physiologic indicators of stress (e.g., adrenergic, immune, neural, endocrine) and stress exposures (e.g., trauma, adversity, cognitive, affective) with women’s health and disease. WHISPR involves investigators from across BWH to develop new research and foster synergy among investigators in this interdisciplinary and cross-cutting field. Learn about past awardees here.

This program was established with a generous gift from the Gretchen S. Fish Fund for Women’s Health and Stress Research.