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Director, Arkansas Center for Birth Defects Research & Prevention/Chair, Dept. of Epidemiology, Univ. of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Wendy Nembhard, PhD, is the director of the Arkansas Center for Birth Defects Research & Prevention, one of 10 CDC-funded centers in the US that researches the causes and impacts of birth defects. She is also a professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), Fay W Boozman College of Public Health in Little Rock, and a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the UAMS College of Medicine. Prior to joining the UAMS College of Public Health in 2017, Dr. Nembhard was scientific director of the Arkansas Reproductive Health Monitoring System, the statewide birth defects registry, at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, and chief of the birth defects research section at the UAMS Department of Pediatrics. Before joining UAMS in 2014, she was an associate professor with tenure in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of South Florida, College of Public Health in Tampa. Dr. Nembhard is a member of several boards, including the National Birth Defects Prevention Network and the Scientific Advisory Board of Conquering CHD. Dr. Nembhard completed a post-doctoral fellowship in social epidemiology and cardiovascular disease at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. She earned her doctoral degree in Epidemiology and Master in Public Health degree in International and Family Health from the University of Texas Houston, School of Public Health. Dr. Nembhard was a 2014 Australian-American Fulbright Senior Scholar, 2018 Fellow of the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Program at Drexel University, School of Medicine, is a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology, a 2019 Fellow (fifth class) of the of the Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellowship Program and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.