As part of its mission to bolster knowledge in the field of women’s health research, the Connors Center hosts educational events, programs and symposia which unite the thought leaders and accomplished researchers of the Brigham and Harvard communities to share their knowledge and expertise.
The Connors Center has been hosting its Women’s Health Luncheon Program annually since 2005 on the Friday before Mother’s Day. Past keynote speakers have included Christy Turlington Burns, MPH, Mariel Hemingway, Tara Westover, Lesley Stahl and Ann Romney. Learn more about the Luncheon here.
The 2024 Luncheon took place in person on May 10, 2024. The theme was “Our Mothers, Our Daughters, Ourselves” and the event featured longtime public health advocate and vice chair of the Clinton Foundation Chelsea Clinton, DPhil, MPH as the keynote speaker along with presentations on health equity from deputy chair of Radiology Catherine Giess, MD and founder and director of the Trauma Imaging Research and Innovation Center Bharti Khurana, MD, MBA. Learn more about the event here.
The 2023 luncheon took place in person on May 19, 2023. More information about the luncheon and its speakers can be found here.
The Annual Connors Center Research Symposium provides an opportunity for the Connors Center to showcase the exciting and important work being carried out to advance the health of women by the Center’s leaders, fellows, and seed funding awardees.
The 7th Annual Connors Center Research Symposium was held in the Zinner Breakout Room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital on Wednesday, October 30, 2024. It was held in conjunction with the Brigham/Harvard Reproductive Outcomes of Stress & Aging (ROSA) Center, an NIH Specialized Center of Research Excellence on Sex Differences. Over 300 registered from the MGB system, Connors Center network, Greater Boston community, and beyond. Participants gathered in-person and virtually to celebrate the important work being done by Connors Center investigators. Speakers included the keynote, Vivian Ota Wang, PhD, FACMG, CGC, Deputy Director of the National Institutes of Health Office of Research in Women’s Health (NIH ORWH), as well as recipients of Connors Centers grant awards and fellowships, ROSA Center associate scientists, and a Mass Life Sciences Center First Look awardee. Read more and watch a recording here.
As part of the Women’s Health Interdisciplinary Stress Program of Research (WHISPR), the Connors Center hosts an annual scientific symposium for the BWH academic community on the topic of how physiologic and psychological stress affect women’s health and disease. Each WHISPR symposium includes a keynote speaker followed by short, pitch presentations from finalists who have applied for one-year pilot research awards on the topic of stress and women’s health.
The Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology hosted the 7th annual Women’s Health Interdisciplinary Stress Program of Research (WHISPR) Symposium and Awardee Presentation in the Zinner Breakout Room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital on Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024. It was held in conjunction with the Brigham/Harvard Reproductive Outcomes of Stress & Aging (ROSA) Center, an NIH Specialized Center of Research Excellence (SCORE) on Sex Differences. Over 100 individuals registered to attend in person and virtually from the Connors Center, the MGB system, the greater Boston community, and beyond. Aimee McRae-Clark, PharmD, BCPP, delivered the keynote address, entitled “Sex, Stress, and Relapse.” Dr. McRae-Clark is a dually appointed Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Neurosciences and Director of the Office of Research Integrity at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). In addition, she is a Research Health Scientist at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center. Dr. McRae-Clark currently leads the MUSC Specialized Center of Research Excellence (SCORE) on Sex Differences (U54DA016511) which integrates basic, clinical and behavioral approaches to gain insight into sex differences and the relationship between addictive drug use, stress and the underlying neural circuitry with an emphasis on opportunities to identify novel therapeutic strategies.
In addition the Dr. Rogers’s keynote, Joji Suzuki, MD provided brief remarks on “Substance Use Disorder Treatment Research at BWH: Improving Existing Interventions and Systems of Care.” Following these talks, the 2024 WHISPR Awardees, Sergey Karamnov, MD and Rose Olson, MD, were introduced and provided an overview of their awarded projects. More information about the Awardees can be found here and a full recap and recording of the Symposium can be found here.
As the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, the mission of the Connors Center remains strong: to highlight the priority for applying a sex and gender lens to important, often urgent, research. To that end, Connors Center Conversations was launched to illuminate and maintain a spotlight on how this incredibly challenging situation will impact the health of women.
Webinars
Telemedicine in the U.S. has expanded rapidly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Use of telemedicine has preserved our ability to care for patients and can also be harnessed to develop and optimize innovative ways to deliver high-quality, gender-specific health care for women. In this webinar, panels of experts will discuss whether and how telemedicine can meet healthcare needs for women, and what obstacles and challenges should be considered and addressed in pursuing this goal.
Sex and Gender Factors in COVID-19: On June 10, 2020 the Connors Center hosted a webinar focused on sex and gender factors in the context of COVID-19 research and care. This webinar featured conversations and panels with experts from Brigham Health.
Podcast
Our podcast series, Connors Center Conversations: Igniting Change for the Health of Women, explores the cutting edge in sex- and gender-informed research and how to translate these discoveries into better and more precise care for women. Find the podcast here.
Episode 1: The Fundamentals of Difference with Hadine Joffe: On this episode of Connors Center Conversations, Hadine Joffe discusses sex- and gender differences in healthcare and research in the context of COVID-19 and the First.In.Women Precision Medicine Platform.
Episode 2: The Effects of Stress and Trauma Over the Lifespan: A Conversation with Dr. Kerry Ressler and Dr. Cindy Liu. On this episode of Connors Center Conversations we take the long view on the impact of stress and trauma Over a Lifetime with Dr. Kerry Ressler and Dr. Cindy Liu.
