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Dr. Nicole Woitowich is the Associate Director for the Women’s Health Research Institute at Northwestern University. She is actively transforming the landscape of women’s health through her research, advocacy, and outreach activities. She implements programming which informs the scientific and medical communities, as well as the public, about the influences of sex and gender on health and disease. In addition, Dr. Woitowich serves as the Director for the Illinois Women’s Health Registry, which promotes the participation of women in clinical research and evaluates state-wide women’s health trends. As a former Presidential Management Fellow awardee, she remains politically active and advocates on behalf of women’s health research. In 2018, she drafted legislation to recognize January 25th as National Women’s Health Research Day which was introduced in Congress by Sen. Duckworth and Rep. Schakowsky, and locally endorsed by Mayor Emanuel. While formally trained as biochemist, her current research explores the impact of science policy on research practices and gender biases in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medical (STEMM) fields. Dr. Woitowich has held a long-standing interest in the advancement and retention of women in the STEMM pipeline and has created programs both at Northwestern University and beyond to this end. In 2015, she was nominated to serve as a member of the Public Outreach Committee for the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, due to her ability to communicate science to diverse audiences and her passion for making science publicly accessible. Through this role, she served as a co-organizer for SciOut18, the first national meeting of science outreach practitioners in the United States.
On Tuesday, May 21st the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Women's Health Research Institute co-hosted the Symposium on Interpersonal Violence at Northwestern University. Led by Dr. Traci Kurtzer (pictured, right), who serves as the Medical Director for Trauma Informed Care and Education, the symposium attracted a multidisciplinary audience of physicians, trainees, social workers, policymakers, and allied health professionals.
Marlita White (pictured, left), the Director of the Office of Violence Prevention and Behavioral Health at the Chicago Department of Public Health kicked off the afternoon with an engaging lecture on the impact of trauma on the health of women and girls in the city of Chicago. In addition, the symposium featured lectures on intimate partner violence, human trafficking, and updates to Illinois law regarding sexual assault.
