On Oct. 20, the National Academy of Medicine announced the election of 100 new members. Among those elected to the class of 2025 was Maureen Phipps, a professor emerita of obstetrics and gynecology at the Warren Alpert Medical School.
Being elected to NAM is “one of the highest honors in medicine,” wrote Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences Mukesh Jain, also a NAM member, in an email to The Herald. Election to NAM signals that “you have made longstanding, substantial contributions” to the medical field, he added.
Phipps earned a place on the prestigious list “for her visionary academic and executive leadership in women’s health, and her transformative contributions to pressing health care challenges across state, national and global contexts,” NAM wrote in a news release.
NAM also cited Phipps’s research on reproductive and maternal health, which focuses on improving outcomes for vulnerable or under-resourced women and families. Phipps was also a professor of epidemiology at Brown’s School of Public Health, according to a University news release.
But beyond the prestige, election to NAM also comes with new responsibilities. As “the nation’s thought leaders in medicine and science,” members of NAM are expected to provide “important recommendations on critical medical and scientific issues,” Jain noted.
Leadership of this scale is familiar territory for Phipps. During her tenure at Warren Alpert, she chaired the University’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and served as assistant dean for teaching and research in women’s health. She also led women’s health for the Care New England health system, which operates Women and Infants Hospital — a major Warren Alpert teaching affiliate.
Throughout her career, Phipps also championed a variety of women’s health initiatives, such as leading the Women’s Reproductive Health Research Scholars Program and the Brown and Women and Infants Hospital National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health. She also chaired the Rhode Island Task Force on Premature Births, which was convened in 2006 as a response to the increasing number of premature births in the state.
After retiring from Brown in 2019, Phipps served as CEO of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, until leaving the post in 2023.
Phipps told Brown News that her election was “an unexpected recognition of the care and commitment I brought to my work as a clinician, professor, researcher, leader and member of the community.”
She emphasized that her work “bridged many departments across Brown as well as the medical and public health community of Rhode Island.”
Phipps’s work “was characterized by its rigor and collaborative spirit,” wrote Caron Zlotnick, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, medicine and psychiatry and human behavior, in an email to The Herald.
Zlotnick called the honor “well-deserved” for Phipps, whose career “epitomizes scholarship and service.”
Phipps also flourished as an advisor, according to Valery Danilack-Fekete PhD’14, an associate research scientist at the Yale School of Medicine who Phipps mentored during her time at Brown.
In an email to The Herald, Danilack-Fekete described Phipps as “a wonderful role model as a scientist and a leader,” adding that Phipps “inspires excellence” among colleagues and mentees alike.
Phipps joins more than a dozen current and former Brown faculty and administrators who are members of the National Academy of Medicine, including Jain, Provost Francis Doyle, Dean of the School of Engineering Tejal Desai P’27 and Dean of the School of Public Health Ashish Jha.
Laila Posner is a senior staff writer covering business and development.
