Showcase of PFRH Research to Advance Maternal and Child Health Across the Life Course

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health
PFRH Wednesday Seminar Series | January 21, 2026

Showcase of PFRH Research to Advance Maternal and Child Health Across the Life Course

Xiaobin Wang, MD, ScD, Zanvyl Krieger Professor and Director of the Center on the Early Life Origins of Disease in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health (PFRH), convenes a panel of PFRH PhD students, postdoctoral investigators, and faculty who present their ongoing research on critical maternal and child health topics, bridging life stages and multiple disciplines.

Speakers:

Alysse Kowalski, PhD, MPH
Leveraging Child Care Settings to Boost Health and Wellbeing
Alysse Kowalski is an Assistant Scientist at in the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health where she works with Dr. Allison West and the Early Childhood Services Research Program. Prior to joining this team, she completed a postdoc in the department with Dr. Erin Hager. Her research explores ways to strengthen early childhood services for children from prenatal to five and this talk will highlight two examples from childcare.

Nan Dou, PhD
Dynamics of Mealtime Routines and Positive Affect: A Bidirectional Examination of Adolescent and Caregiver Perspectives Across the Pandemic
Nan Dou is a postdoctoral research fellow working with Dr. Erin Hager on the STRONG (Striving To Reach Optimal Nutrition and Growth) research team. Her research focuses on food insecurity, health disparities, and protective factors among vulnerable families. She earned her PhD in Nutritional Sciences from Penn State in 2022.

Xueqi Qu, PhD
Association of Cord Blood Mitochondrial DNA Heteroplasmy and Copy Number with Childhood Overweight or Obesity
Xueqi Qu, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Fellow at PFRH with research interests in neurodevelopmental disorders and mitochondria.

Xiaoyu Che, MBBS, MSPH
Maternal cardiovascular health matrix and child neurodevelopmental outcomes
Xiaoyu Che is a first-year doctoral student in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research focuses on maternal nutrition and cardiovascular health across the life course, with particular interest in how maternal cardiometabolic and dietary factors influence neurodevelopmental outcomes in children. Using large longitudinal cohort studies and epidemiologic methods, she aims to elucidate early-life pathways linking maternal health to long-term child development and to inform prevention strategies that promote maternal and child health equity.

Nusrat Jabin, MS
Maternal nutrition and biological aging
Nusrat Jabin is a PhD student in the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health (PFRH). She holds an MS in International Health and Tropical Medicine from the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on maternal and child health, with an emphasis on how early-life exposures and the interplay of biological, behavioral, and environmental factors shape health trajectories across the life course. She currently works as a Research Assistant at the Center on the Early Life Origins of Disease (CELOD) under the mentorship of Dr. Xiaobin Wang.