Biography
Dr. Chambers is a professor of pediatrics at University of California, San Diego and Vice Chair of Clinical Research for the Department of Pediatrics at UCSD and Rady Children's Hospital. She is a perinatal epidemiologist, whose research is focused on environmental exposures and pregnancy and child health outcomes, including birth defects. She co-directs the Center for Better Beginnings in the Department of Pediatrics at UCSD and is the Program Director of MotherToBabyCalifornia - a service providing evidence-based information on exposures during pregnancy and lactation to the public and health care providers. She is the founder and Program Director of Mommy’s Milk, a nationwide human milk biorepository for research. Furthermore, she is the director of the UCSD ACTRI Center for Life Course and Vulnerable Populations Research, which brings together a unique multidisciplinary group of researchers to address study questions across the lifespan and special populations.
Dr. Chambers leads a number of national and international complex longitudinal cohort studies and clinical trials of prenatal exposures and child health and development. Her research over the last 20 years has focused on environmental causes of birth defects, other adverse pregnancy outcomes and childhood disabilities, with a focus on pre- and postnatal exposure to recreational substances and medications. Her research has been instrumental in identifying previously unrecognized human teratogens, as well as ruling out substantial risk for other prenatal exposures.