Barbara Chaiyachati MD, PhD
Barbara Chaiyachati (she/her) is a faculty member at PolicyLab and Clinical Futures at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). She is also a faculty member at Safe Place: The Center for Child Protection at CHOP and the Neonatal Follow-Up Program at CHOP as well as a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Additionally, Dr. Chaiyachati serves as a community support and education task force co-chair within the Comprehensive Opioid Response and Education (CORE) team at CHOP and is involved with a number of substance use related initiatives.
Dr. Chaiyachati's portfolio of research reflects an intersectional, interdisciplinary approach to improving the physical and emotional health trajectories of children after adversities. Her approaches address multiple levels of translational inquiry, from biologic embedding of experiences of trauma by epigenetic modifications, such as methylation, to practice and policy to support more equitable and evidence-based approaches toward adversities. Within this scope, she has a connected string of inquiries related to data assumptions and their validity, with a particular eye toward points of equity.
Dr. Chaiyachati earned her MD and PhD at Yale University. Her PhD in Cellular Biology assessed epigenetic mechanisms within immune regulation. Prior to graduation, she completed a two-year research and policy fellowship and a Doris Duke fellowship for the promotion of child well-being. Her graduate medical education included general pediatrics residency, a child abuse pediatrics fellowship at CHOP, and a T32 fellowship in neuropsychiatry at CHOP and the University of Pennsylvania. In her final year of fellowship, she partnered to launch a clinical care track Neonatal Follow-Up Resilience after Infant Substance Exposure (NFP-RISE), which provides interdisciplinary, neurodevelopmental care to support positive developmental trajectories for infants and children after prenatal substance exposure.