Dr. Seetha Shankaran is Professor of Pediatrics at Wayne State University School of Medicine. From 1990 to 2016 she served as Director of the Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics based at Children’s Hospital of Michigan and Hutzel Women’s Hospital. She is involved in patient care, research, education and advocacy for Children. Her research includes performing clinical trials of new therapies, neuroprotection and long term follow up of high risk infants. She was the WSU site Principal Investigator of the NICHD multi-center Neontal Research Network from its founding in 1985 to 2016 and performed the first US trial of the neuroprotection with hypothermia for hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) in term infants with continued follow up of trial participants to childhood. This therapy has become the standard of care for HIE. She also demonstrated the safety and efficacy of the cooling strategy, comparing standard cooling with longer and/or deeper cooling. Dr. Shankaran was also the site PI of the study evaluating impact of maternal lifestyle during pregnancy (MLS) on childhood and adolscent outcome funded by NIDA and NIMH. Dr. Shankaran attended St. Joseph’s Covent located in Coonoor, India from 1950-1961, Queen Mary’s College in Madras, India from 1961 to 1962 and Madras Medical College from 1962 to 1968. She has received many outstanding honors and awards throughout her 50+ year career including Hutzel University Hospital/Hutzel Womans’s Hospital Physician Difference Maker in 2015, Honorable mention: Who’s Who in Academia, listed in Annual “Top Docs” Castle Connolly Medical and Annual “Top Docs” Hour Magazine, Detroit as well as Best Doctors in America 2012-2013. Dr. Shankaran is an Expert Medical Witness in Neonatology as well as served on a number of National, International, State and University Boards and Committees. Dr. Shankaran has published in over 300 publications and taught a variety of courses since 1975. She is a member of the Children’s Hospital of Michigan Foundation Grants and Compliance Committee and has supported approving over 50 grant projects.