2026 Queenan Global Health Awards
Pictured above (left to right): Drs. Lilly Liu, LeAnn Louis, Anna Marie Young, and Shuai Zeng, MM have been selected as the recipients of the 2026 Queenan Global Health Awards.
Lilly Liu, MD, MPH, director of Critical Care Obstetrics at Montefiore Medical Center, and assistant professor of Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Critical Care Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine is the recipient of the Seed Funding for Investigator-Initiated Research Projects for her research project “Improving Obstetric Critical Care Outcomes in Low and Middle Income Countries Through Structured Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) Training for Obstetricians: A Prospective Interventional Study.”
Under the mentorship of Dr. Sarah Jean Hanson at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dr. Liu will conduct research in Gaborone, Botswana, to evaluate the impact of a structured POCUS training program on obstetricians’ competency in performing and interpreting non-obstetric point-of-care ultrasound for obstetric critical care patients, with a focus on its application for maternal cardiopulmonary resuscitation and across various organ systems.
LeAnn Louis, MD, MPH, a first-year maternal-fetal medicine fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has received the Visiting Teaching Fellowship. She will spend two months in 2026 as a visiting faculty member at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) in Lusaka, Zambia.
Through this Queenan Global Health Award, Dr. Louis will focus on ultrasound education and broader high-risk obstetric training for OB/GYN residents at UTH. The curriculum will extend beyond ultrasound to include major domains of high-risk pregnancy management, such as hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, preterm birth prevention and management, fetal growth restriction surveillance, care of multiple gestations, and diabetes in pregnancy. This opportunity further supports LeAnn’s commitment to education, research, and advancing maternal health equity both domestically and globally.
Anna Marie Young, MD, MPH, a first-year maternal‑fetal medicine fellow at Brown University/Women and Infants Hospital, has received the International Agency Mentored Research Fellowship.
Dr. Young is deeply committed to global maternal health, with a focus on advancing equitable care for high-risk pregnant populations through implementation-focused research and workforce capacity development. This 12-month mentored fellowship, including approximately two months onsite in Geneva, will support Dr. Young’s work in international maternal and perinatal health research and guideline development, while helping her build new research skills, understand how international guidelines are created, and learn how research is translated into public health policy.
Shuai Zeng, MM, is the 2025 Queenan Travel Award recipient. Mr. Zeng is a Ph.D. Candidate in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Peking University Third Hospital, in Beijing, China, specializing in high-risk pregnancies, placenta accreta spectrum disorders, and postpartum hemorrhage. His research is dedicated to understanding the pathophysiology of these critical obstetric conditions and on improving their clinical management, with a strong record of scholarly publications.
The Foundation for SMFM will host Mr. Zeng at the 2026 SMFM Pregnancy Meeting in Las Vegas, NV, for his contributions to the following abstracts:
Abstract 672
“Adverse Outcomes in Cesarean Scar Ectopic Pregnancies Continuing into Mid- to Late-Trimesters: A Meta Analysis”, presented during Poster Session 2 on February 11.
Abstract 966
“Real-World Multi-center Validation of an Ultrasound Scoring System for Placenta Accreta Spectrum Disorders”, presented during Poster Session 3 on February 12.
Abstract 1262
“Decidual Transcriptome Profiling Unravels Key Dysregulated Genes in Cesarean Scar Ectopic Pregnancy”, presented during Poster Session 4 on February 12.
Learn more about the Queenan Fellowships for Global Health here.
