HMI'27 Invited Speakers

Tanya L. Alderete, PhD

Associate Professor
Department of Environmental Health and Engineering
Bloomberg School of Public Health
Johns Hopkins University

Dr. Tanya Alderete is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, with a joint appointment in Epidemiology, at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She earned her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and her PhD in the Systems Biology of Disease from the University of Southern California, followed by postdoctoral training at USC’s Environmental Health Sciences Center.

Dr. Alderete’s research sits at the intersection of environmental exposures, the human microbiome, and maternal and child health. Her team uses multi-omics approaches to investigate how early-life environmental exposures, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), shape human milk composition, the gut microbiome, and infant growth and development. By integrating molecular, microbial, and exposure data, her research seeks to uncover biological pathways linking environmental exposures to health across early life.

Her contributions have been recognized with the 2024 Tony McMichael Mid-Career Award from the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, the 2023 Provost’s Faculty Achievement Award, and the Health Effects Institute’s Rosenblith New Investigator Award. Her research is supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

Kathy Giacomini, PhD, BSPharm

Dean, School of Pharmacy
Troy C. Daniels Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences
UC San Francisco

Dr. Kathy Giacomini, is the current Dean of the University of California, San Francisco School of Pharmacy. She is a world renowned scientist as a leader in the field of membrane transporters with a focus on genetic polymorphisms. She cloned, characterized and discovered the endogenous role of the human transporter, OCT1 (SLC22A1), and recently de-orphaned SLC22A10, SLC22A24 and SLC22A15, discovering physiologic and pharmacologic substrates of the transporters. Her current research is focused on transporters in the human blood brain barrier, the topic of today’s discussion.

Amy Hair, MD

Associate Professor
Program Director of Neonatal Nutrition
Medical Director of TCH Milk Banks
Division of Neonatology
Division of Nutrition
Department of Pediatrics
Baylor College of Medicine
Texas Children's Hospital

Dr. Amy Hair is currently an Associate Professor and Neonatologist in the Section of Neonatology and Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital. She is the Program Director of the Neonatal Nutrition Program, Medical Director of the Texas Children's Hospital Milk Banks, and Associate Director of the NICU Intestinal Rehabilitation Program. She is the Director of the Dr. Diane Anderson Neonatal Nutrition Conference held yearly in March that is well known for providing updates in neonatal nutrition.

Dr. Hair received her undergraduate degree in Biology at the University of Georgia and her MD from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. Her postgraduate training included a pediatrics residency at the University of Virginia, followed by postdoctoral fellowships in neonatal-perinatal medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine and in nutrition at the USDA/Agricultural Research Service Children’s Nutrition Research Center in Houston.

Dr. Hair’s research focuses on neonatal nutrition, specifically growth and the use of human milk in very low birth weight infants. Dr. Hair is the principal investigator for multiple ongoing research studies including a R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study fatty acid absorption and the liver-gut-microbiome axis in preterm infants. Dr. Hair is recognized internationally as an expert in human milk and neonatal nutrition.

Berthold Koletzko, MD, PhD

Else Köner-Senior Professor of Paediatrics
Dr. von Hauner Children’s Hospital
LMU University Hospital
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich
Germany

Dr. Koletzko studied medicine at at the University of Münster, Germany and was trained in paediatrics at Baragwanath Hospital, Johannesburg-Soweto, South Africa; Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, Moshi, Tanzania; Children’s Hospital, Heinrich Heine Universität of Düsseldorf, Germany; and Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Canada.

He chairs the Division of Metabolic and Nutritional Medicine at Dr. von Hauner Children’s Hospital, LMU University Munich and is internationally renown for his work on nutrition and metabolism in infancy, childhood, adolescence and pregnancy and lactation. His research includes lab based work focussed on lipid and protein metabolism, metabolomics and lipidomics, and interaction of genetics and epigenetics with nutrition and metabolism, randomized controlled intervention studies exploring short and long-lasting effects of nutrition in infancy and childhood, and the development, evaluation and implementation of health promoting strategies. He has been involved in numerous expert committees developing guidelines and recommendations and in provision of scientific advice to regulatory bodies.

Bert is author of >1260 scientific journal articles, 256 book chapters, and 49 books/monographies (Web of Science H-index 121, 55,88g citations). Research.com rated him as the highest ranked German researcher in paediatrics in the year 2026, with 74,486 citations and a D-Index of 143. Expertscape 2026 rated him as the world’s top rated expert in the areas “Child Nutrition Science” and “Child Nutritional Physiological Phenomena” and as “World Expert” in research on on “Milk” and “Infant Nutritional Physiological Phenomena” (among the top 0.01 % researchers worldwide based on publications in the last decade).

His research funding amounted to 20 Mio.€ during the last decade, including funding from European Union (EU) Horizon Europe and preceding EU Framework Research Programmes, EU Research Council (ERC), EU Erasmus+ Programmes, EU Joint Programming Initiative, German Research Council, German Centre for Child and Adolescent Health Research, German Federal Ministry of Education & Research, German Ministry of Health, Bavarian State Government, US National Institutes of Health, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, German Academic Exchange Service, Else Kröner Fresenius Foundation, Family Larsson Rosenquist Foundation, and other funding bodies.

Bert received numerous honours and awards, including recently the Distinguished Service Award of the European Society for Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (ESPGHAN), the Honorary Membership with Distinction of the Colombian Society for Neonatology, and the Great Medal of Honor of the University of Rzeszow, Poland.

Bert is Editor in Chief, Ann Nutrition & Metabolism and Associate Editor Paediatrics, Associate Editor Paediatrics, Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metabol Care, and served until 2026 as Editor in Chief, World Rev Nutrition & Dietetics and until 2025 as Associate Editor, Monatschr Kinderheilkunde. For many years he has been serving on the grant review board medicine, German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG), and as chair and deputy chair of the DFG Clinical Trial grant review board.

Bert currently is the President of the European Academy of Paediatrics, and member of Strategic Advisory Group Nutrition, International Pediatric Association; Committee on Nutrition, German Society of Paediatrics; German National Action Alliance for Vaccination. He is Past President of European Soc of Paediatr Gastroenterol, Hepatol & Nutrition (ESPGHAN), Federation Int Soc of Paediatr Gastroenterol, Hepatol & Nutrition (FISPGHAN), Int Soc Res Human Milk & Lactation (ISRHML), German Society of Nutritional Medicine (DGEM), and Past-Treasurer of United European Gastroenterology (UEG) and Biomedical Alliance in Europe. He has been providing scientific advice to the German Federal Government, Innovation Initiative of the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, European Commission Scientific Committee on Food, European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, World Health Organisation (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), Codex Alimentarius of WHO and FAO, and other national and international governmental bodies and organisations. Bert is the founder and Chair of the Board of the charitable Stiftung Kindergesundheit (Child Health Foundation, www.kindergesundheit.de) based at the Children’s Hospital, LMU University of Munich. The foundation successfully engages in science and evidence-based promotion of child health and disease prevention since 1997 and has an annual turnover >2 mio. Euros.

Deborah (Debbie) O’Connor, PhD, RD

Earle W. McHenry Professor
Canada Research Chair in Human Milk and Infant Nutrition
Chair of the Department of Nutritional Sciences
Temerty Faculty of Medicine
University of Toronto
Canada

Dr. Deborah (Debbie) O’Connor is the Earle W. McHenry Professor and Chair of the Department of Nutritional Sciences in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, and a Canada Research Chair in Human Milk and Infant Nutrition. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the American of Nutrition and the Canadian Nutrition Society. She also holds scientific appointments in the Translational Medicine Program at The Hospital for Sick Children, and the Department of Pediatrics at Sinai Health in Toronto. At SickKids, she served as Director of Clinical Dietetics and Breastfeeding Support from 2000 to 2012 and then as Associate Chief of Academic and Professional Practice until 2013. She was the inaugural Chair of the Advisory Board for the Rogers Hixon Ontario Human Milk Bank.

Prior to arriving in Toronto, Dr. O’Connor served as scientist in industry. For more than three decades, Dr. O’Connor has pioneered innovative approaches to improving neonatal nutrition for the most vulnerable infants primarily through clinically embedded blinded multicentre randomized controlled trials. Her work includes developing and testing multi-nutrient fortifiers and protocols to support human milk feeding in hospitalized infants, enriching infant formulas with essential nutrients, and leading transformative initiatives in donor human milk banking and shaping official international guidelines for use.

Margaret H. Rabotnick, PhD, MPH

Postdoctoral Scholar
Department of Pediatrics
Human Milk Institute
UC San Diego

Dr. Margaret Rabotnick is an in vitro developmental toxicologist and postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Pediatrics at UC San Diego, where she works with the Human Milk Institute. She earned her PhD in Toxicology and MPH in Environmental Health Sciences from the University of Michigan and her BS in Environmental Science from UCLA. Her interdisciplinary training spans mechanistic toxicology, exposure science, maternal-child health, reproductive biology, and human lactation.

Dr. Rabotnick’s research examines how environmental, nutritional, and pharmacologic exposures during lactation influence mammary gland function, human milk composition, and infant health. Her doctoral research investigated how endocrine-disrupting chemicals, particularly per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, alter placental signaling and maternal lipid metabolism during pregnancy. Her postdoctoral work expanded this focus to the lactation period, integrating human milk biospecimens with mechanistic mammary epithelial and infant adipocyte models to study milk composition and early-life metabolic programming.

Her current research focuses on developing a functional human mammary organoid platform that recapitulates key features of lactation biology. This model is being designed to investigate mechanisms regulating milk synthesis and secretion and to screen environmental chemicals, pharmaceuticals, dietary compounds, and other factors that may influence mammary function and milk composition. Her long-term goal is to develop human-relevant experimental tools that advance medication safety, exposure guidance, lactation science, and future innovation in human milk production and research.

Sasirekha (Sashi) Ramani, PhD

Associate Professor
Molecular Virology and Microbiology
Baylor College of Medicine

Dr. Sashi Ramani is an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, where she leads a multidisciplinary research program focused on enteric infections and vaccines. She received her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the Christian Medical College, Vellore, India , followed by postdoctoral training in Molecular Virology at Baylor College of Medicine before starting her independent research program.

Dr. Ramani's research spans laboratory- and population-based studies aimed at understanding host factors that influence susceptibility to rotavirus and norovirus infections and vaccine responses, with a particular emphasis on improving oral vaccine performance in infants worldwide. Her work combines human cohort studies with intestinal organoid models to investigate how host genetics, the microbiome, and bioactive factors in human milk, including human milk oligosaccharides and the milk microbiome, influence susceptibility to gastrointestinal infections and vaccine responses. Her laboratory played a leading role in the establishment and characterization of infant human intestinal organoids that are now widely used to study gastrointestinal infectious and non-infectious diseases. Dr. Ramani has authored nearly 100 peer-reviewed publications and collaborates extensively with interdisciplinary teams of molecular, clinical, and translational scientists with the goal of identifying interventions with translational potential to improve human health.

Kim Updegrove

Bridget E. Young, PhD

Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Director of Research – Breastfeeding and Lactation Medicine
University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry

Dr. Bridget Young is the Director of Research for Breastfeeding and Lactation Medicine at the University of Rochester. Dr. Young's research interests are in early infant nutrition. She studies the impact of obesity and insulin resistance on bioactive components in breast milk, and resultant programming effects in the infant. She particularly focuses on the effect of oral insulin in human milk on infant pancreatic function and intestinal maturation in the neonate.