Team

Dr. Sean Harris is a Research Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health. His research aims to advance our understanding of how environmental toxicants contribute to adverse pregnancy outcomes such as preterm birth and preeclampsia. Dr. Harris’s research uses a combination of approaches including transcriptomics, metabolomics, primary tissue models and computational/data mining methods to investigate molecular mechanisms of toxicant effects on the placenta and fetal membranes. Dr. Harris also investigates extracellular vesicles as a source for circulating biomarkers of toxicant effects on the placenta. Follow Dr. Harris on Twitter and check out his LinkedIn page.

Dr. Elkin is a postdoctoral trainee in toxicology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Her research seeks to identify mechanisms by which exposure to environmental contaminants may disrupt normal physiological processes in the placenta during pregnancy. Dr. Elkin uses traditional laboratory-based techniques and 'omics' approaches such as transcriptomics to investigate placental toxicity in cell culture and tissue culture models. Dr. Elkin is a Pediatric Endocrinology Training Program (PETP) trainee co-mentored by Dr. Rita Loch-Caruso (EHS) and Dr. Kelly Bakulski (Epidemiology). Check out Elana's LinkedIn Page here.

Kyle Campbell is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Working with his dissertation advisor Dr. Kelly Bakulski, he collaborates with the Loch-Caruso team on placental research. His research aims to map the role of distinct placental cell types in fetal-maternal health by generating and analyzing cell-type specific datasets in the human placenta. He translates this work to pregnancy cohorts to understand the potential health consequences of environmental exposures that perturb placental genome-wide DNA methylation patterns.