Announcing the New Pilot Co-Directors

Elisha M. Wachman, MD
Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Dr. Elisha Wachman is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University (BU) Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Director of Pediatric Academic Research, and attending neonatologist at Boston Medical Center (BMC). She attended the BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, the Boston Combined Residency Program in Pediatrics (BMC and Children’s Hospital Boston), and the Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center Neonatology Fellowship Program. Dr. Wachman then joined the pediatric faculty at BMC in 2013. She is an internationally recognized leader in Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome (NOWS) and substance use disorders (SUDs) in pregnancy, conducting innovative clinical and translational research and leading quality improvement interventions. Her research has included the investigation of optimal pharmacologic treatment regimens for infants with NOWS, optimal approaches to the pharmacologic treatment of pregnant persons with OUD, clinical, genetic, and epigenetic markers of NOWS outcomes, and the examination of long-term childhood outcomes after prenatal opioid exposure. She is currently the principal investigator (PI) on 3 NIH grants related to treatment for pregnant individuals with OUD, the PI of a March of Dimes grant examining placental epigenetic markers for NOWS, and the PI of a Center for Disease Control surveillance project related to OUD in pregnancy and 6-year child outcomes. She has also spent much of the past 3 years studying perinatal COVID-19 transmission and impact of vaccination against COVID-19 during pregnancy on neonatal outcomes. She has published over 75 manuscripts, review articles, and/or book chapters. She is also currently the co-lead of the Massachusetts Perinatal-Neonatal Quality Improvement Network (PNQIN) Perinatal Opioid Project (POP) and was one of the developers of the Eat, Sleep, Console (ESC) NOWS assessment tool which has been rolled out across the country. In her role as Director of Pediatric Academic Research at BMC, she oversees research endeavors in the Department of Pediatrics including the establishment of centralized research infrastructure and resources.

Andrew Henderson, PhD
Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Dr. Henderson is a Professor of Medicine and Virology, Immunology and Microbiology, Section of Infectious Diseases, an Assistant Dean in Graduate Medical Sciences, and Associate Director of the Providence/Boston Center for AIDS Research. His research focuses on biochemical and cellular mechanisms that influence HIV replication and pathogenesis. He has maintained a well funded program, served on and chaired numerous NIH and private foundation study sections, mentored numerous trainees from high-school students to post-doctoral fellows and has helped develop undergraduate and graduate training programs including those that support the training of underrepresented groups.