About the Center for Women's Health, Sex, and Gender Research

Welcome

The mission of the Johns Hopkins Center for Women's Health, Sex, and Gender Research is to expand scientific leadership and promote discovery in women’s health, sex, and gender research by bringing together multidisciplinary faculty and mentoring trainees from across the Johns Hopkins community.

Our vision is to advance the health of women and achieve women’s health equity through impactful research.

What We Do

  • Connect researchers to funding opportunities in women's health, sex, and gender differences
  • Conduct networking session and annual symposia aimed at identifying research gaps and building interdisciplinary collaborations that bridge clinical, epidemiological, and basic biomedical research in women's health, sex, and gender research
  • Provide mentorship and training opportunities to students, fellows, and junior faculty who do research related to women's health and sex/gender differences
  • Encourage faculty development from underrepresented groups in academic medicine and public health, such as women, racial/ethnic minorities, and sexual/gender minorities
  • Promote the visibility of all Johns Hopkins research and activities focused on women's health, sex, and gender-based differences
  • Build a funding base that supports networking sessions, symposia, and pilot award programs for early-stage researchers

How We Started

In 2007, an interdisciplinary group of scientists at Johns Hopkins University launched the Women’s Health Research Group (WHRG) under the leadership of Wendy Bennett, MD, MPH as a grassroots effort to promote networking and research collaborations in women’s health.

Activities began with a monthly research seminar spearheaded by Fred Brancati, MD, Chair of the Division of General Internal Medicine, who wanted to foster more women’s health collaborative research and mentorship for fellows in internal medicine.

The Center’s founders wanted to better understand not only diseases specific to women, but also diseases that occur or manifest disproportionately in one sex over the other.

Our Center Today

The WHRG evolved into the Johns Hopkins Center for Women’s Health, Sex, and Gender Research under the collaborative leadership of Wendy Bennett, MD, MPH (Johns Hopkins School of Medicine) and Sabra Klein, PhD (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health). The Center now organizes annual networking opportunities and symposia to bring together women’s health leaders and Johns Hopkins researchers to promote shared interests in women’s health, sex, and gender.

The Center also manages a pilot grant program, in collaboration with the Foundation for Gender-specific Medicine, to fund new research endeavors relevant to sex and gender differences.

Our Leadership

Profile Photo of Sabra Klein

Sabra Klein, PhD

Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology

Co-Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Women’s Health, Sex, & Gender Research

Sabra Klein studies sex differences and the effects of pregnancy on immune responses to viruses, including influenza viruses and SARS-Cov-2, and vaccines. She is Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Women’s Health, Sex, & Gender Research, as well as Director of the Johns Hopkins Specialized Center in Research Excellence in Sex and Age Differences in Immunity to Influenza (SADII-SCORE).  

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Wendy Bennett

Wendy Bennett, MD

Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Department of General Internal Medicine

Co-Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Women’s Health, Sex, & Gender Research

Wendy Bennett practices all aspects of primary care medicine, including preventive care and coordiantion of care with other specialists. She has particular interests in weight management and women's health care. Dr. Bennett’s research focuses on obesity prevention and control. She is interested in behavioral interventions to promote healthy weight gain in pregnancy and postpartum weight loss. She is Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Women’s Health, Sex, & Gender Research, as well as Research Director of General Internal Medicine.

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Patrick Shea

Patrick Shea, MSPH

SADII-SCORE Senior Research Program Coordinator

Patrick Shea is the Senior Research Program Coordinator for the Johns Hopkins Specialized Center in Research Excellence in Sex and Age Differences in Immunity to Influenza (SADII-SCORE) and works closely with the Johns Hopkins Center for Women’s Health, Sex, & Gender Research to promote and manage a variety of join programming, including the JH-CWHSGR Annual Symposium and the Johns Hopkins SCORE Seed Grants on Sex & Gender Differences Program.  He is also the Senior Research Program Coordinator for the Johns Hopkins Excellence in Pathogenesis and Immuntiy Center for SARS-CoV-2 (JH-EPICS).

Contact

Our Collaborators