Perinatal Pathology Virtual Course 2026

Shaken, Not Stained Happy Hour & Trivia

Join us for a relaxed virtual social hour featuring a guided mixology session, a craft cocktail, and trivia!

Cocktail: Midnight in Havana (Espresso Martini)

Registered by July 28?
Your custom mixology kit includes the cocktail ingredients except heavy cream. Just pick up some heavy cream, ice, and your favorite cocktail glass!

Didn’t receive a kit? No problem! You can still join the fun. We recommend having:

• 1.5 oz aged rum (Appleton Estate Signature or Bacardi Reserva Ocho) or Tequila Ocho Reposado
• 1 oz espresso syrup with Xocolatl bitters or coffee liqueur + bitters
• 0.75 oz heavy cream
• Ice (at least 6 cubes)
• Glassware (coupe, Nick & Nora, rocks, or martini)

Optional: Cocktail shaker, jigger, and strainer

Making the mocktail? Skip the rum (or use NA rum), and use coffee syrup (or a similar coffee-flavored syrup) and heavy cream.

Linda Ernst, MD, MHS

Endeavor Health

Dr. Ernst is a Clinical Professor of Pathology at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and practices perinatal pathology at the Endeavor Health System located in the Chicagoland area. She has been involved in the SPP since the early 1990’s and was the SPP President in 2023-2024. Her career has focused on the clinical and research aspects of perinatal pathology. She has performed more than 20000 placental examinations in her career and preformed more than 1000 perinatal autopsies. She is particularly interested in chronic placental inflammation, stillbirth and placenta accreta. She has played a major role in teaching the next generation of perinatal pathologists through her interactions with hundreds of pathology residents and fellows. She has worked with several multidisciplinary teams of researchers studying placental pathology, its relationship to adverse pregnancy outcomes and how socioeconomic status, race and perinatal stress contribute to these outcomes.

Presentations Include: Approach to Perinatal Autopsy; Normal Fetal Histology and Common Abnormal Findings; & “A Case That Taught Me the Most” Case Presentation & Panel

Angela Viaene, MD, PhD

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Angela Viaene, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. She holds the Lucy Balian Rorke-Adams Endowed Chair in Neuropathology and is the Associate Director of Neuropathology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She received both her PhD in Computational Neuroscience and MD from the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Following this, Angela completed a combined Anatomic Pathology residency and Neuropathology fellowship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 2018. She is board-certified in both Anatomic Pathology and Neuropathology and is a practicing pediatric neuropathologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Her neuroscience research experience began over twenty years ago, resulting in over 90 publications and numerous grants, and spans a wide range of topics from electrophysiology to neuro-oncology in both humans and animal models. Her primary areas of interest are pediatric neurologic diseases including perinatal hypoxic/ischemic brain injury and neurogenetic disorders. She has authored book chapters, including the “Acquired disorders of childhood” chapter in Greenfield’s Neuropathology. Dr. Viaene is the Chair of the Program Committee for the American Association of Neuropathologists and a member of the Perinatal Committee for the Society of Pediatric Pathology. She is also very involved in medical education and is the Director of the Brain and Behavior Neuropathology unit at the Perelman School of Medicine.

Presentations Include: Perinatal Neuropathology

Katte Carreon, MD

Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School

Dr. Carreon currently serves as Anatomic Pathology Co-Director of the Cardiac Registry and Director of Perinatal and Placental Pathology at Boston Children’s Hospital. She holds the rank of Assistant Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. Her academic interests focus on the morphology of congenital heart defects—particularly cardiac phenotypes associated with various syndromes, as well as placental abnormalities linked to congenital heart disease, and mechanisms of failure of devices used in cardiac repair surgery. She is a strong advocate for global health and actively participates in outreach teaching and pathology capacity-building initiatives.

Presentations Include: Segmental Analysis of Cardiac Anatomy

Teresa Victoria, MD, PhD

MGB

Dr. Victoria did her fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where she stayed for 16 years. She then moved to Mass General Brigham where she is currently the chief of pediatric radiology.

Presentations Include: Skeletal Dysplasia in the Fetal Period

Drucilla Roberts, MD

Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Roberts completed her BA and MA at UCLA then her MD at Harvard Medical School. After a 2-year stint as a resident in OB-GYN, she began her anatomic pathology training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital where she also completed a fellowship in Women’s and Perinatal Pathology. After her post-doctoral fellowship focusing on the genetic controls of vertebrate pattern formation, she started and headed the perinatal pathology division at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her interest in Global Health began after her involvement in the Women’s and Infants Transmission Study which, in part, focused on congenital HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. Throughout her career she has learned from and worked with many luminaries including Ramzi Cotran, Shirley Driscoll, Raymond Redline, and Cliff Tabin, amongst many others.

Presentations Include: Anatomic Pathology in Resource Limited Regions

Beverly Rogers, MD

University of Arizona

Dr. Rogers has been practicing perinatal pathology for almost 40 years. She was trained in fellowship at Texas Children’s Hospital and went to Rhode Island to work, and learn from, Dr. Don Singer following fellowship. She and her husband, Tom, and their young family went to Dallas, Texas in 1992, where she was director of perinatal pathology at Parkland Memorial Hospital (UT Southwestern Medical Center), at the time the largest delivery hospital in the U.S. She became chief of pathology at Children’s Medical Center and then Vice Chair of the Department of Pathology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She accepted a position as chief of pathology at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and retired from that position in 2023. Dr. Rogers is currently living in Tucson, Arizona where she practices pediatric/perinatal/placental pathology. Dr. Rogers is the co-editor of Perspectives in Pediatric Pathology, a Special Issue of Pediatric and Developmental Pathology, and has just completed a collection of articles focused on perinatal pathology for the general practitioner. She also serves as an expert witness for cases involving perinatal autopsy and placental pathology.

Presentations Include: Macroscopic Examination of the Placenta – It’s Really Not Gross

Sanjita Ravishankar, MD

University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center

Sanjita Ravishankar completed her MD at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, followed by AP/CP residency at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, NY, perinatal and pediatric pathology fellowship at Women & Infants Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, RI, and surgical pathology fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. She is currently an associate professor of pathology at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, where she has been practicing perinatal, pediatric and gynecologic pathology for 10 years, and is currently the director of the perinatal pathology service. She led the SPP Placental Pathology Reporting task force, and is dedicated to driving the mission to improve the quality of the practice of placental pathology across the country and the globe, and educating pathologists, clinicians and patients.

Presentations Include: Maternal and Fetal Vascular Pathology

Charlotte Kim, MD

Texas Children’s Hospital

Charlotte Foster Kim, M.D., is a board-certified pediatric and perinatal pathologist and Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine. She earned her B.A. from Davidson College and her M.D. from Wake Forest School of Medicine, followed by residency at Houston Methodist Hospital and fellowship training at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Kim serves as Medical Director of Obstetrical Pathology at Texas Children’s Hospital, where she leads clinical and educational initiatives in high-risk pregnancy pathology. She is one of the authors of the recently published Survival Guide to Placental Pathology and an active researcher, award recipient, and member of national pathology societies. Dr. Kim is deeply committed to teaching, patient-centered care, and community service.

Presentations Include: Maternal and Fetal Vascular Pathology

Jefferson Terry, MD, PhD

BC Children’s and Women’s Hospitals

Dr. Terry is a pediatric and perinatal pathologist at BC Children’s and Women’s Hospitals. His research interests include the pathophysiology of chronic intervillositis of unknown etiology, sudden infant death syndrome, and Crohn’s disease.

Presentations Include: Chronic Placental Inflammation

Rebecca Linn, MD

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Dr Rebecca L Linn is an Assistant Professor of Pathology and Lab Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Director of Perinatal Pathology at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). She is board certified in AP-CP and Pedatric Pathology, having trained at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine for her residency and joining the CHOP pathology department after completing her CHOP Pediatric Pathology Fellowship 2017. She now leads a team of four pediatric pathologists with expertise in placental pathology, perinatal and forensic autopsy to provide expert perinatal diagnostic services both within CHOP in support of the Richard D. Wood Jr. Center of Fetal Diagnostics and Treatment and to an expanding consultation service supporting hospitals throughout the region. As an enthusiastic advocate of perinatal pathology, she has served as an invited speaker to a broad range of audiences, providing education and insight on a range of subjects related to fetal and placental pathology.

Presentations Include: Evaluation of the Twin Placenta; Beyond Traditional Postmortem: What are the Alternatives and How Should We Approach Implementation?

Sunitha Suresh, MD

Endeavor Health

Dr. Suresh completed her undergraduate education in biomedical engineering at Northwestern University. She subsequently completed both medical school and OB GYN residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. During fellowship at University of Chicago and Endeavor Health, she completed elective and research training under Dr. Linda Ernst and has subsequently dedicated her research career to furthering the understanding and treatment of adverse pregnancy outcomes utilizing placental histology.

Presentations Include: Leveraging Placental Insights to Inform Clinical Decision Making

Jeffrey A. Goldstein, MD

Northwestern University

Jeffery A. Goldstein is a placental pathologist and medical director of digital pathology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Dr. Goldstein completed MD and PhD at the University of Chicago, residency in Anatomic Pathology at Vanderbilt and fellowship in Pediatric Pathology at Lurie Children’s Hospital. Dr. Goldstein has been at Northwestern since 2018, where he has focused on placental pathology across pregnancy complications and machine learning analysis and diagnosis of placental disease.

Presentations Include: Integrating Digital Pathology into Placental Pathology Practice

Jonathan Hecht, MD, PhD

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Dr. Hecht trained in New York (Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons) and Boston (Brigham and Women’s Hospital Pathology). He is currently an academic surgical pathologist focused on adult gynecologic and perinatal pathology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Boston) and holds the rank of Professor at Harvard Medical School. He was the lead pathologist on the Extremely Low Gestational Age Newborns (ELGAN) study which characterized placental pathology and microbiology associated with impaired neurologic development in the second trimester. He has characterized the anti-angiogenic phenotype of villous and implantation site trophoblast in women with early onset preeclampsia. As member of the SPP perinatal pathology committee, he let development of the current grading system for placenta accreta spectrum.

Presentations Include: Approach to Products of Conception

W. Tony Parks, MD

University of Toronto

Dr. Parks has been an active perinatal pathologist for over 20 years, having performed large numbers of perinatal autopsies and placental examinations. His primary interest is in the placenta, particularly the relation between placental pathology and clinical outcomes. He has worked (and continues to work) extensively in two particular areas. The first, in collaboration with Janet Catov, is the association of placental pathology findings with the development of cardiovascular disease in women. The second, in collaboration with Yoel Sadovsky, is the detection of molecular signatures underlying adverse pregnancy outcomes and placental pathology.

Presentations Include: The Relation of Maternal Vascular Malperfusion Lesions to Later Life cardiovascular Disease in Women

Janet Catov, PhD, MS

University of Pittsburgh

Janet M. Catov, PhD MS is Professor in the Departments of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences, Epidemiology and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of Pittsburgh with extensive experience designing and conducting studies of population and clinical cohorts to understand determinants and consequences of adverse pregnancy outcomes such as hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, preterm birth, and gestational diabetes. She is one of the top 3 scientists globally studying the intersection of pregnancy and cardiovascular disease (Web of Science, 2026). Her current research has focused on clues from placental function that may be markers of vascular pathophysiology that contribute to adverse pregnancy outcomes and accelerated progression to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease across the maternal lifespan. She also leads intervention trials to improve maternal cardiovascular health during and after pregnancy. She is Director of Health and Clinical Research at Magee-Womens Research Institute, a member of the Magee-Womens Hospital Maternal Mortality Review Committee and oversees the Magee Obstetric Maternal and Infant (MOMI) Database and Biobank, a perinatal cohort of births and linked biospecimens collected across pregnancy.

Presentations Include: The Relation of Maternal Vascular Malperfusion Lesions to Later Life Cardiovascular Disease in Women

Ciaran Hutchinson. MBBS, PhD, FRCPath

Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom

Dr. Ciaran Hutchinson is a consultant paediatric pathologist based at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. He completed a PhD in minimally invasive autopsy in 2019 and has ongoing research interests in paediatric oncology and medical physics.

Presentations Include: Beyond Traditional Postmortem: What are the Alternatives and How Should We Approach Implementation?

Alan Flake, MD

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Alan Flake is Professor of in the Division of General Thoracic & Fetal Surgery at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where he holds the Ruth and Tristram C. Colket, Jr. Endowed Chair in Pediatric Surgery, is Vice Chair of Surgical Research, and acts as Director of the Center for Fetal Research. He is also Professor of Surgery tenured track at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Over the past 30 years, Dr. Flake has led a research laboratory directed toward surgical correction of fetal anomalies, fetal stem cell and gene therapy, and more recently the development of artificial womb technology, which is on the verge of clinical application. Among other awards, he is the recipient of the 2021 March of Dimes Richard B. Johnson, Jr., MD Prize in Developmental Biology. Clinically, Dr. Flake remains an active Pediatric and Fetal Surgeon at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Presentations Include: EXTENDing Gestation: Physiologic Support of the Extreme Premature Infant

Terry Morgan, MD PhD

Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU)

Dr. Terry K. Morgan, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Pathology, Obstetrics & Gynecology, and Biomedical Engineering, at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). He has worked the past 30 years in the field of women’s health research, publishing 145 peer-reviewed papers and a number of books about placental and gynecologic pathology. He has been an NIH-funded scientist since 2009 and he is the Associate Director for the Center for Developmental Health at OHSU. In 2023 he won the prestigious Career Achievement Award in Placental Sciences from the International Federation of Placental Associations. Dr. Morgan is the chair and founder of the Tree of Life Legacy Society and has served on the Preeclampsia Foundation Scientific Advisory Council since 2018.

Presentations Include: “A Case That Taught Me the Most” Case Presentation & Panel

Virginia Duncan, MD

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Virginia Duncan is an Associate Professor of Pathology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). She holds Board Certifications in Anatomic, Clinical, and Pediatric Pathology. She received her MD degree from the University of Florida College of Medicine and completed Pathology residency training at UAB, followed by Pediatric and Perinatal Pathology Fellowship training at Seattle Children’s Hospital in Seattle, Washington. She serves as the Section Head of Perinatal Pathology in the Women’s Health Division at UAB and collaborates in multidisciplinary clinical, educational and research efforts with Maternal Fetal Medicine, Obstetrics, Neonatology, and Genetics Departments. She is also active in the Pediatric and Perinatal Pathology community, serving on the Placenta Reporting Task Force of the Society for Pediatric Pathology, and on the Editorial Board for Pediatric and Developmental Pathology.

Presentations Include: “A Case That Taught Me the Most” Case Presentation & Panel

Philip Katzman, MD

University of Rochester Medicine

Raised in Boston, MA, Dr. Katzman attended medical school at the University of Vermont and then trained in pediatrics and pathology at University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), Rochester, NY. He returned to Boston for pediatric pathology fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital. He then went back to URMC as faculty in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Over the past 25 years he has been on the pediatric and perinatal pathology service where he reviews over 2000 placentas and products of conception per year, signs out general pediatric pathology cases including pediatric tumors, pediatric GI and liver biopsies, pediatric head and neck biopsies, and pediatric autopsies. His main research interest has been placental chronic inflammatory disease.

Presentations Include: “A Case That Taught Me the Most” Case Presentation & Panel