Dr Michelle Caroline Fernandes
OMPHI International Research Fellow

Michelle is a clinical academic and is currently the Oxford Maternal and Perinatal Health Institute International Research Fellow at the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and a Senior House Officer at the Women's Center of the John Radcliffe Hospital. She is the coordinator of the Infant Development Group for the INTERGROWTH-21st Project, a longitudinal multi-site population based study aimed at developing clinically prescriptive standards of foetal and infant growth and development in an optimally healthy international sample. She is responsible for the development and implementation of the INTERGROWTH-21st Neurodevelopment Package, a novel multi-dimensional neurodevelopment assessment protocol for pre-schoolers. The package is in use in the study sites in Brazil, Kenya, India, Italy and the UK where more than 550 children have been assessed till date. It has received interest from the Gates Foundation, the WHO and Grand Challenges Canada.

Michelle completed her medical training in 2008 and received a Doctor of Philosophy in Psychiatry from the University of Oxford in 2011. She has been the recipient of the Clarendon Fund Scholarship, the Exeter Kokil Pathak Scholarship, the Harold Hyam Wingate Scholarship, the Ashok Ranganathan Bursary, the Donald J. Cohen Fellowship, the TATA Idea Idol 2012 Award and OBN's best emerging medtech award. Her doctoral research was supported by grants from the University of Oxford and from the Child Care Health and Development Trust. Her post-doctoral work is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Michelle’s research interests span three key areas:
1) Perinatal medicine, including perinatal psychiatry and foetal monitoring
2) Early neurodevelopment
3) The developmental origins of health and disease

Michelle has held appointments as the Junior Dean of Exeter College, Oxford and as a Program Associate at Microclinics International.

Contact:

E: michelle.fernandes@obs-gyn.ox.ac.uk
T: +44 (0) 1865 222396