Jada Shirrel, MS CEO, Healthy Start Pittsburgh 

Ms. Jada Shirriel is the CEO of Healthy Start, Inc. based in Pittsburgh, PA. She is trained in marketing, public policy and management, managing community initiatives, and directing strategic partnerships. She leads a remarkable team of more than 100 volunteers, staff, and various collaborators who are dedicated to making sure all families have access to affordable, quality care to improve maternal and child health outcomes and quality of life in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Her collaborative work includes co-leading the Allegheny County Infant and Fetal Mortality Review process and the Pittsburgh Study Pregnancy Collaborative. Notably, in 2021 she led the convening of over 50 partners to develop an Infant Health Equity Action Plan (The BIRTH Plan described earlier), which subsequently received a 5-year, $2.5M funding award from HRSA. She is also a lead community partner in the NINR R01 funded study (PIs: Méndez, Jarlenski) focused on evaluating Medicaid policies for racial equity and improvements in maternal and infant health. She has worked in collaboration with numerous Pitt researchers in MCH over several years. She is a leader wh 

Onome Oghifobibi, MD, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine 

Onome Oghifobibi is a neonatology fellow pursuing organized research training in the area of resuscitation medicine as part of the Pediatric Scientist Development Program (PedSDP) at UPMC Children’s Hospital and the the Burroughs Wellcome Foundation (BWF) Physician-Scientist Incubator Program at University of Pittsburgh. Under the guidance of resuscitation experts at the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research, Onome’s research focuses on defining the mechanisms underpinning cerebral blood flow dysregulation after asphyxial cardiac arrest with the goal of developing therapeutic strategies that will improve neurological outcomes in infants and children with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. 

Ashley Hill, DrPH, MPH, University of Illinois Chicago 

Dr. Ashley Hill is an Assistant Professor of Community Health Sciences at University of Illinois of Chicago and a reproductive epidemiologist whose research focuses on maternal and child health, reproductive and sexual health, and health equity. Her work considers multiple cooccurring social systems and institutions that impact the reproductive health of minority women. One of her key research projects is the Pittsburgh adaptation and implementation of a violence prevention and sexual health promotion program, Sisterhood 2.0, where she specifically focused on the feasibility and acceptability of the program in community settings and preliminary effectiveness of the program improving contraception uptake. Additionally, she has a Research Supplement to Promote Diversity through NIMHD investigating links between experiences of race-based discrimination and sexual health among Black adolescent girls. Finally, she has a pilot study with Healthy Start focused on understanding influences of Black partners and fathers on perinatal health outcomes.