Program Leadership
Marie Krousel-Wood, MD, MSPH
Tulane BIRCWH Principal Investigator and Research Director
Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology
Dr. Krousel-Wood is a physician-scientist who engages in NIH-funded clinical research and clinical trials focused on adherence to prescribed therapies, management of hypertension, and sex differences and health disparities research engaging local, national and international women and men with chronic cardiometabolic diseases. She is nationally and internationally recognized for her research in medication adherence to antihypertensive medications and has developed and validated with her team a brief open access adherence tool for use in research and clinical settings (K-Wood MAS-4 (Krousel-Wood Medication Adherence Scale-4 item) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3729884/; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6485944/; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7752228/. She is committed to understanding differences in determinants and outcomes of disease by sex, race, and age in the quest to develop tailored interventions to advance and improve human health. She has presented her research findings at national, and international scientific meetings and has collectively published over 150 peer-reviewed articles, reports and book chapters. In addition to her own research, she is committed to training the next generation of scientific and academic leaders and leads pre- and post-doctoral career development programs including serving as the Principal Investigator and Research Director for the NIH K12 Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) faculty career development award and Multi-Principal Investigator (contact) for the Tulane Stimulating Access to Research in Residency (StARR) (R38). She also co-directs the Tulane Institute for Physician Scientists and the Faculty Physician Pipeline Program and leads the MD/MPH program at Tulane—one of the oldest and largest programs of its kind in the US with over 1100 graduates and serves as a model for combined medical and public health training of future physicians nationwide.
Emily Harville, PhD
Director, Tulane BIRCWH Women’s Resource Laboratory
Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Associate Director of the Tulane Translational Science Institute
Dr. Emily Harville is a perinatal epidemiologist with interests in how pregnancy and reproduction relate to health throughout the life course, including the biological mechanisms by which health disparities are created. Major projects include studying the relationship between cardiovascular and reproductive health in the Bogalusa Heart Study; effects of disaster, including the COVID pandemic, on pregnant and postpartum women; and creating a consortium of preconception health studies (the PrePARED Consortium). She is an advisor to the CCREOH (Caribbean Consortium for Research in Environmental and Occupational Health) project in Suriname. She teaches the third-level epidemiologic methods course, EPID 7130 Observational Epidemiology, EPID 6600 Epidemiology of Disparities, and SPHU 3170 Foundations of Epidemiology.
Richard Brunies
Tulane BIRCWH Program Manager
Richard Brunies serves as the primary liaison between the BIRCWH Scholars, the faculty mentors, and the Principal Investigator. He is responsible for the coordination of all program-related day to day activities, the Scholar recruitment and application process, and all program evaluation activities. He also contributes to the preparation of study protocols, monitoring the completion of Responsible Conduct in Research Training, and assisting Scholars with research project coordination activities.
Laura Perry, PhD
Tulane BIRCWH Analyst
Dr. Perry works closely with the Director of the BIRCWH Women's Health Resource Laboratory to assist the BIRCWH Scholars with data management, quality control, and data analysis.
