Research Subcommittee

Alejandra Barrero-Castillero, MD, MPH (she/her/hers) is currently a neonatologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and at the NICU Growth and Developmental Support Programs (NICU GraDs) at Boston Children’s Hospital, and an Instructor in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Barrero-Castillero is a proud Latina, born and raised in Mexico City, Mexico where she obtained her medical degree from Anahuac University School of Medicine. She then came to the US and received a master’s in public health with a concentration in Biostatistics and International Health from Boston University School of Public Health. Completed her pediatric residency at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and most recently completed her neonatology fellowship at the Harvard Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Program and a fellowship at the Harvard-Wide Pediatric Health Services Research Fellowship Program. Her research focuses on assessing and characterizing psychosocial stress exposure and response among preterm infants and their families, particularly focusing on immigrant families, to create interventions that may improve long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes. 

Dr. Vance conducts research in health services, health equity and economic outcomes associated with having a medically complex infant. Additionally, she concentrates on work to align healthcare system practices with family-focused values to increase parent engagement and self-efficacy in caring for vulnerable infants during and after NICU hospitalization. She has worked as a bedside nurse in many Level 4 and regional NICUs across the US and continues to consult with neonatal providers in the areas of parent engagement, care coordination, discharge preparedness and dismantling of racism in care practices.

Dr. Lakshmanan’s passion has been to address health equity in the field of perinatal-neonatal medicine. Dr. Lakshmanan earned a dual degree B.S./B.A. and MD at the University of Southern California. She completed a pediatric and chief residency at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA). To develop her ability to perform health services research, she entered the Harvard-wide Pediatric Health Services Research fellowship, which provides a highly structured mentorship, and a Masters in Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. This nicely complemented her clinical training in the Harvard Neonatal Perinatal Medicine Fellowship program. In recognition of her training, Dr. Lakshmanan was recruited to the University of Southern California (USC) Keck School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Fetal and Neonatal Institute. She is currently Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Preventive  Medicine and Section Head for Epidemiology and Outcomes.

Henry Lee is a neonatologist with training in epidemiology and health services researcher. He received mentorship during fellowship at Stanford from Jeffrey Gould, the founder of the California Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative (CPQCC), and Adams Dudley during the K Scholars Program at UCSF. CPQCC has been the setting of his research and implementation work, including studies to address disparities in NICU processes and outcomes. He is also engaged in research and advancing teaching methodology for neonatal resuscitation.