2026 Garite Mini-Sabbatical Grants

Pictured above (left to right): Drs. Rachel Friedlander, Rachel Madding, and Gayathri Vadlamudi have been selected as 2026 recipients of the Garite Mini-Sabbatical Grants.

Rachel Friedlander, MD, a first-year maternal-fetal medicine fellow at Weill Cornell Medicine, will conduct a project, “Better lifestyle outcomes and optimal metabolic health for mothers.”

The Garite Mini-Sabbatical grant will support Dr. Friedlander under the mentorship of Drs. Heather Lipkind and Alpana Shukla at Weill Cornell, where she will gain clinical skills, research tools, and interdisciplinary perspective and training to develop strategies for obesity management and cardiometabolic care in pregnancy and postpartum.

Rachel Madding, MD, a first-year maternal-fetal medicine fellow at Stanford, will conduct a project, “Integrating complex abortion care into maternal-fetal medicine practice.”

The Garite Mini-Sabbatical grant will allow Dr. Madding to spend four weeks under the mentorship of Dr. Adam Crosland at Oregon Health & Science University, where she will gain clinical and procedural skills and experience related to pregnancy termination, complex pregnancy options counseling, interdisciplinary care coordination, and the management of pregnancies complicated by fetal anomalies.

Gayathri Vadlamudi, MD, a third-year maternal-fetal medicine fellow at the University of Texas Southwestern, will conduct a project, “Advanced fetal diagnosis and multidisciplinary approach to fetal therapy.”

The Garite Mini-Sabbatical grant will allow Dr. Vadlamudi to spend four weeks under the mentorship of Dr. Sami Backley at UTHealth Houston Fetal Center, where she will participate in team-based care across the full continuum from prenatal diagnosis to fetal intervention to postnatal management of complex fetal conditions.

Learn more about the Garite Mini-Sabbatical Grants here.