Full Circle Healthy Community Coalition | Dr. Stephanie Hale Walker

DR. STEPHAINE HALE WALKER

Dr. Stephaine Hale Walker, formerly a Harvard Medical Faculty Physician Neonatologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an Instructor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Pediatrics, has most recently joined the Department of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical School as an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Neonatologist at Monroe Children’s Hospital.

Her research interests focus on reducing disparities as they relate to neonatal-perinatal outcomes by addressing the social determinants of health which drive poor reproductive outcomes for minority women through community coalition building.

Additional interests include improving equity in care, along with quality improvement within the neonatal intensive care unit, with emphasis on those centers serving vulnerable populations. Dr. Walker’s goal is to be an advocate for the healthcare of all children and to develop successful programs and policies that will improve the health and survival of infants in underserved communities across the nation.

Dr. Walker has been the recipient of several honors and awards, including The Partnership Inc. Fellowship in Boston, MA while at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for 2008, the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Minority Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2006-2007, the Presidential Scholars Award at Harvard University 2006-2007, and the Dr. Milton Rosenbluth Fellowship at Cornell University Medical College which enabled her to spend two months working in Argentina in various pediatric hospital and clinical settings.

Her record of teaching, mentoring, and volunteering in the community has included mentoring teenage girls interested in science in Boston and Nashville, the Inwood House for Pregnant Teens in New York and “Lifting as We Climb” programs in Nashville, as well as teaching STD/AIDS educational programs in schools in Philadelphia and New York City. In addition she has mentored a number of medical students, residents and fellows in Boston and Nashville.

Dr. Walker, a native of Los Angeles, California, received her Bachelor of Science degree from Vanderbilt University in 1997, her medical degree from Cornell University Medical College in 2001, completed her residency in Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in 2004, her fellowship in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles/University of Southern California Medical Center in 2006, and completed a Master of Public Health degree as a Commonwealth Fund Fellow in Minority Health Policy while at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2007.