Gretchen Ruschman

Originally from Athens, Kentucky, Gretchen attended the University of Kentucky, where she earned a BS in Agricultural and Medical Biotechnology with minors in philosophy and microbiology. There, she joined the labs of Dr. Carlos Rodriguez-Lopez in the Department of Horticulture, studying the role of DNA methylation on soil microbial community assembly, and Dr. Patrick Hannon, where she investigated the impact of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on ovarian function.

Wanting to explore the interaction between microbial communities while continuing to learn about reproductive biology, she joined the lab of Dr. Priscilla Day-Walsh and Prof. Charnock-Jones in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Cambridge as an MPhil student. Her research focuses on mechanistically characterizing the effects of maternally derived microbial metabolites and their associated microbes on placental function and pregnancy outcomes.

Following her MPhil, Gretchen will continue to build on this work with Dr. Day-Walsh and Prof. Charnock-Jones at Cambridge, as well as taxonomically and functionally characterizing the maternal gut microbiome across pregnancy with Dr. Suchitra Hourigan at the Clinical Microbiome Unit at the NIAID.

After her PhD, Gretchen plans to pursue a career in academic medicine with a long-term goal of becoming a clinician-scientist dedicated to improving pregnancy outcomes.