Meet Our Team
Richard K. Miller, PhD, is the Director of MotherToBaby UR Medicine and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, of Environmental Medicine, and of Pathology and Clinical Laboratory Medicine. He is a Clinical Pharmacologist/Toxicologist by training and counsels patients who are planning pregnancies or are already pregnant concerning health risks. He is internationally recognized for his expertise in Teratology. He is currently Chair of the OTIS-ENTIS International Research Consortium on evaluating agents that can produce birth defects. He is member of the Advisory Board for TERIS. Dr. Miller is also co-Director of the NYS Center of Excellence in Children's Environmental Health (Finger Lakes Children's Environmental Health Center). He is the Dysmorphologist and on the Scientific Advisory Boards for the International Belimumab Pregnancy Registry, US Ribavirin Pregnancy Registry and the Mother Pregnancy Registry. He just completed editing the 3rd edition of "Drugs During Pregnancy and Lactation: Treatment Options and Risk Assessment". He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Toxicology and Past President of the Teratology Society.
Ruth A. Lawrence, MD, is a graduate of Antioch College and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, is a pediatrician, clinical toxicologist, and neonatologist. She is Professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Medical Director of the Ruth A. Lawernce Poison and Drug Information Center and of the Breastfeeding and Human Lactation Study Center.
Norma Barton, BS Pharm, is a Certified Specialist in Poison Information, Drug Information Specialist, and Helpline Coordinator. Ms. Barton has years of experience handling emergent inquiries from families concerning exposures in children, during pregnancy and lactation. Previously, she and her team managed the calls for the previous NYS CEHC at the University of Rochester. She supports our call line, our email inquiry line and website.
Jennifer D. Becker, M.P.H. is the MotherToBaby Outreach Coordinator and also coordinates two regional centers: the Rochester Office of the Western NY Lead Poisoning Resource Center and the NYS Finger Lakes Children's Environmental Health Center. She is bringing her experience and skills with these programs to expand MotherToBaby UR Medicine’s educational and outreach opportunities.
Kenneth Edell, B.S. is the Database Administrator for the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He manages the REDCap database used for tracking call-line information.
Meet our Advisory Board
Elizabeth M. Cooper, EdD, joined the faculty of the department of Ob/Gyn in 1975 as the first nurse-midwife to practice in Rochester. A nursing graduate of the University of Texas, she completed midwifery education at Columbia University in 1971, and a doctorate in Higher Education for Health Professions from the University of Rochester in 1992. As the founder and director of the URMC midwifery practice since its inception twenty years ago, Cooper remains an active clinician in the practice. She is also involved in providing medical and midwifery education, as well as several research studies. Cooper's areas of expertise include care of the developmentally disabled, women in the peri-menopause, as well as group prenatal care.
Lauren Deutsch, Esq. is the Executive Director, Healthy Baby Network of Monroe County which provides community leadership to achieve optimal health for babies and their mothers. The Healthy Baby Network promotes care, education, and services that are high quality, comprehensive, and accessible. The Healthy Baby Network focuses on eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in birth outcomes to achieve community-wide health equity.
Mona Gandhi, PharmD, is the director of the Drug Information Center and the Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice Administration at the St. John Fisher College Wegmans School of Pharmacy. In addition to her specialized training in drug information, she continues to focus on women’s health issues including medication use during breastfeeding and infertility therapies. She earned a bachelor of science in Pharmacy at the Rutgers University College of Pharmacy and her doctor of pharmacy at the University of Florida.
Ronnie Guillett, MD, PhD, is Professor of Pediatrics, Neonatology. Her primary research focus is in the area of neonatal brain development and injury. The developing brain is at risk from the effects of centrally-acting agents, including hypoxia, seizures, and medications. This risk is due in part to the fact that the brain may be more vulnerable during times of rapid maturational change. She has an active clinical research program, focused on the neonatal brain. Dr. Guillet is the recent recipient of a 5 year multimillion dollar grant from NIH for a multicenter clinical trial to determine if treatment with phenobarbital compared with treatment with placebo for four months after resolution of neonatal seizures alters neurodevelopmental outcome or changes the incidence of recurrent seizures.
Curtis E. Haas, PharmD, joined URMC as director of Pharmacy in 2006, has more than 30 years of pharmacy experience including clinical practice, academia, clinical research and specialty residency programs. He previously served as associate professor of pharmacy practice at the University at Buffalo’s School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and as adjunct clinical assistant professor in the departments of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Rochester. He earned a bachelor of science in Pharmacy at the Albany College of Pharmacy of Union University, and his doctor of pharmacy at the University at Buffalo. He has published extensively on clinical drug research and critical care topics.
Katrina Smith Korfmacher, Ph.D. is the Finger Lakes Children's Environmental Health Center Educator and Consultant. She is Associate Professor Environmental Medicine, of Public Health Sciences, and of the Center for Community Health. Dr. Korfmacher is Director of the Community Outreach and Engagement Core for the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences Center at the University of Rochester.
Tiffany Panko, MD, MBA, is a postdoctoral research fellow at the NTID Center on Cognition and Language, where her research interests include health literacy, access to health care, and women’s health. She completed her undergraduate and M.B.A. training at the Rochester Institute of Technology and went on to earn her M.D. from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. As a medical student, she became involved with MotherToBaby with the goal of increasing accessibility and awareness of resources available from MotherToBaby UR Medicine to the deaf community. As a deaf person, a Rochester native, and born to deaf parents, she has great interest in supporting her Rochester deaf community.
Eva K. Pressman, MD, is The Henry A. Thiede Professor and Chair of The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at The University of Rochester. She is Director of Maternal Fetal Medicine and Director of the MFM Fellowship training program. She completed her undergraduate training at Brown University and received her medical degree at Duke University School of Medicine, where she was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. Dr. Pressman did her residency training in Ob/Gyn as well as a fellowship in Maternal Fetal Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Before coming to Rochester in 1999, Dr. Pressman was an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins from 1994-1999, where she was also Associate Director of the Ob/Gyn Residency Program, Director of the Fetal Assessment Center, and of the High Risk Obstetrical Clinic. Dr. Pressman is Board Certified in Ob/Gyn and in Maternal Fetal Medicine.
Casey Rosen-Carole, MD, MPH, MEd is Medical Director of Lactation Services and Programs at the University of Rochester. She trained at New York Medical College and completed a residency in Pediatrics at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital. She was a practicing community pediatrician and residency faculty from 2008-2014, in New Haven, CT then in New York's Hudson Valley before relocating to Rochester to do a fellowship in Breastfeeding Medicine and General Academic Pediatrics. Dr. Rosen-Carole was in the National Health Service Corps from 2010-2014 working in Federally Qualifying Health Centers, which helped her fulfill her mission of increasing access and quality of care for at-risk children. She practices outpatient and inpatient Breastfeeding Medicine and Pediatrics. She is fluent in French and Spanish. Dr. Rosen-Carole's research focus is in systems change for breastfeeding education and support. Other areas of interest include community organizing to address social determinants of health, programming for diversity and equity, and obesity prevention and management
Timothy Wiegand, MD, MS is Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine. He earned his degree in medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, School of Medicine and Public Health, and completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Wiegand went on to complete a toxicology fellowship and training in clinical pharmacology at UCSF. He also received his certification in toxicology by the American Board of Emergency Medicine.