Donna Day Baird is an American epidemiologist and evolutionary-population biologist. She is a senior investigator at the

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) conducts research into the effects of the environment on human disease, as one of the 27 institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is located in the Rese ...

Early career and education

Baird completed a bachelor of arts in biology,

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

, at Macalester College in 1968. From 1968 to 1969, she was a laboratory technician in the department of anatomy at

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

(UMN). Baird was a research analyst for the American Rehabilitation Foundation from 1969 to 1972. She was a research and teaching assistant in the department of ecology at UMN from 1972 to 1976. Baird was trained as an evolutionary/population biologist in the Ecology Department at UMN. From 1978 to 1979, Baird was an instructor in the departments of ecology and anthropology at UMN. She earned a Ph.D. in evolutionary ecology from UMN in 1980. Her dissertation was titled ''Dispersal in Microtus pennsylvanicus''. In 1980, Baird was a post-doctoral fellow at the Northern Illinois University Center for Biopolitical Research. From 1981 to 1982, Baird was a staff associate for biological sciences curriculum study in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...

. In 1983, she was a graduate teaching assistant in the department of epidemiology at

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

. Baird's post-doctoral work at the University of North Carolina provided the opportunity for train in reproductive epidemiology. She earned a M.P.H. in epidemiology from

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

in 1984. Her thesis was titled ''Cholesterol change during menopause''.

Career

Baird joined the

(NIEHS) in 1984 as a senior staff fellow. In 1990, she became an epidemiologist, senior investigator, and principal investigator. At NIEHS, Baird began by studying fertility and developing epidemiologic methods for studying it. She has longstanding interest in hormones and fertility as well as early pregnancy events (implantation, corpus luteum rescue, the luteal placental shift in support of the pregnancy, as well as pregnancy complications and pregnancy outcomes). More recently, Baird developed a research program in uterine fibroid epidemiology. She mentors people at all levels.

Research

Baird's research has focused on women's reproductive health, especially understudied conditions. In addition to research in specific content areas, she is interested in developing new methodologies including techniques for data collection and analysis.

Awards and honors

In 2010, Baird was elected to the

American Epidemiological Society The American Epidemiological Society is an American honorary society dedicated to epidemiology. It was established in 1927, and has held annual meetings since 1968. It is the oldest epidemiology organization in the United States. Past members of the ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baird, Donna Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Macalester College alumni University of Minnesota alumni UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health alumni National Institutes of Health people 20th-century American biologists 21st-century American women scientists 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American biologists American women biologists American women epidemiologists American epidemiologists Evolutionary biologists