INVITED SPEAKERS
 | Nishi Bhopal Nishi Bhopal MD is board certified in Psychiatry, Sleep Medicine, and Integrative Holistic Medicine. She is the founder and medical director of Pacific Integrative Psychiatry, an online practice in California where patients receive a whole-person approach to anxiety and sleep disorders, including sleep coaching, and integrative and functional medicine. In addition to her private practice, Dr. Bhopal is the founder of IntraBalance, an educational platform that includes a YouTube channel and online courses on clinical sleep medicine for healthcare practitioners and a coaching program for adults with insomnia. Her passion is making sleep easy to understand and accessible to all. |
 | Helen L. Coons, PhD, ABPP Helen L. Coons, PhD, ABPP is a board-certified clinical health psychologist who specializes in women’s health and mental health, perinatal mental health, psychosocial oncology, and integrated services in women’s health care. Dr. Coons received her PhD in Clinical Psychology, Temple University after completing her internship in Medical Psychology, Duke University Medical Center. She was also a 2005 DHHS Primary Health Care Policy Fellow. Dr. Coons has over 35 years of professional experience working with women facing physical, mental health, and psychosocial challenges, collaborating with health care providers, and providing consultation on women’s health and mental health services and policy. She was Professor of Clinical Practice, Department of Psychiatry, CUSOM, where she served as the inaugural Clinical Director, Women’s Behavioral Health and Wellness Services (2019-2023). Dr. Coons is currently President and Clinical Director, Women’s Mental Health Associates, Denver, Colorado. Her clinical practice has been co-located or integrated in women’s primary care, obgyn, reproductive medicine, sexual medicine, urogynecology, pelvic pain, oncology, and psychiatry settings. She provides care to women coping with early and advanced cancer, infertility, pregnancy complications and loss, perinatal mood disorders and anxiety, PCOS, menopause, sexual concerns, pelvic pain, chronic and life-threatening physical conditions, trauma and loss. Dr. Coons is a dynamic speaker known for presentations to health care providers and community audiences and enjoys serving as an expert source for media. A fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), she was the founding chair of the APA Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology, served on the APA Board of Directors, and was president of the Society for Health Psychology. |
| Angela Incollingo Rodriguez Angela Incollingo Rodriguez is an associate professor of Psychological & Cognitive Sciences and Neuroscience at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. She directs the Stigma Eating & Endocrinology Dynamics (SEED) Lab and collaborates on interdisciplinary research initiatives both within the United States and around the world. Dr. Rodriguez's research program harnesses an integrated biopsychosocial approach to identify psychosocial predictors and mechanisms that drive health behaviors, overall health, and health inequity. Her mixed-methods research occurs at the intersection of social phenomena (such as weight stigma), biomarkers (such as cortisol and inflammation), and psychological factors (such as stress and behavior change). Core themes throughout her work include eating and exercise, weight and obesity, stigma and discrimination, pregnancy and maternal health, and chronic pain. Notably, over the last decade, she has spearheaded the study of weight stigma in the context of pregnancy, documenting both the phenomenology and consequences of this key determinant of maternal health. |
| Stephen Scott, MD, MPH Stephen Scott, MD, MPH is an Associate Professor and the Endowed Chair of Perinatal Mood Disorders in the Departments of Ob/Gyn and Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He is the former Chair of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology (PAG) at Children's Hospital Colorado where he currently is the Director of PAG Research. He is the Director of Power Over Pelvic Pain (POPP), a multidisciplinary clinic for the treatment of chronic pelvic pain in female adolescents. He is the Associate Director of the Colorado Adolescent Maternity Program and the PROMISE program, both of which provide multidisciplinary psychosocial support for pregnant and parenting adolescent and adult women. |
| Dr. Anna R Whelan MD FACOG Dr. Anna R Whelan MD FACOG is a double board certified OBGYN and Maternal Fetal Medicine Subspecialist at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, MA. Dr. Whelan is a clinician-researcher with a special interest in perinatal mental health and weight bias in obstetrics. She completed her undergraduate studies in psychology at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA and went on to medical school at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, IL. She found her calling in Obstetrics and Gynecology and matched at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago for her residency. Following residency, she moved back to the Northeast and completed her fellowship in Maternal-Fetal Medicine at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, Alpert Medical School at Brown University. In August of 2023 she returned to Worcester and joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in the department of OBGYN. Shortly after starting at UMass she was awarded a KL2 mentored career development award through the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences to adapt a Health at Every Size intervention to obstetric care where she aims to leverage her previous research in birth experience, perinatal mental health and weight stigma to improve the prenatal care experience for individuals living in larger bodies. In addition to her clinical and research work, she is the chair of education for the Association for Weight and Size Inclusive Medicine. |
