Current position: Associate Professor

Current affiliation: University of Illinois at Chicago

Research website: Link

Research description: Dr. Rutherford is an Associate Professor of Women, Children, and Family Health Science in the College of Nursing at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), serving masters level midwifery and women’s health nurse practitioner students as well as PhD students. Dr. Rutherford is a biological anthropologist whose work integrates evolutionary theory with biomedical science. Her research program revolves around a central interest in the dynamic maternal environment in which a fetus develops, with a primary focus on the primate placenta as a signaling interface between mother and fetus. Dr. Rutherford is part of a four-woman team that published the groundbreaking SAFE study about sexual harassment and assault in the field sciences. Dr. Rutherford is the PI of an R01 titled “Womb to Womb: programming reproduction in female marmoset monkeys.” She has been an Robert Wood Johnson Future of Nursing mentor since the first year of the national program. She is the recipient of many awards including the UIC Researcher of the Year (2013) Rising Star in Clinical Sciences, American Society of Primatologists Legacy Award, National Academy of Science Kavli Foundation Fellow, the American College of Nurse Midwives Excellence in Teaching Award, and an NIH Loan Repayment Program Award.