Susannah Hopkins Leisher
North American Regional Office
University of Utah Stillbirth Center of Excellence
Susannah (Zan) Hopkins Leisher is a stillbirth epidemiologist, global stillbirth advocate, and parent to Wilder Daniel, stillborn at 38½ weeks on July 13, 1999, with no cause found. She has a PhD in epidemiology from Columbia University and master’s degrees in epidemiology (LSHTM) and international economics/social change and development (Johns Hopkins University). Her stillbirth research interests include structural racism and epigenetic mechanisms of effect. Zan was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal and then spent over 20 years working on global poverty and social justice in Asia, Africa and Central America, including ten years in Vietnam. At the University of Utah, Zan is co-director of the first Stillbirth Center of Excellence in the United States. She is an honorary research fellow of the Stillbirth Centre for Research Excellence at the University of Queensland, Australia; a former chair of the International Stillbirth Alliance; and a member of the Steering Committee of AlignMNH, the MFMU Network’s Community Engagement Board, and the WHO/UNICEF’s Every Woman Every Newborn Everywhere Management Team.