Natalie D. Hernandez-Green

Biography

Natalie D. Hernandez-Green, PhD, MPH, is a nationally recognized women’s health equity leader, scientist, and advocate whose work spans reproductive health, pregnancy, postpartum care, maternal behavioral health, chronic disease, fertility, and community-centered systems change. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Morehouse School of Medicine and the Founding Executive Director of the Center for Maternal Health Equity.

Dr. Hernandez-Green earned her BA in Anthropology from Stony Brook University, her MPH from Emory University, and her PhD in Public Health from the University of South Florida. Her interdisciplinary training has shaped a career grounded in rigorous, community-engaged research focused on understanding and addressing the factors that influence women’s health across the life course.

She serves as a Multiple Principal Investigator of CORAL, one of 12 NIH-funded Maternal Health Research Centers of Excellence in the United States. Her research portfolio includes federally and philanthropically funded studies focused on maternal behavioral health, perinatal substance use, intimate partner violence, preconception health, cardiometabolic risk, fertility, maternal near miss, community-based care models, and maternal health workforce development. Her work integrates epidemiology, implementation science, qualitative and mixed methods, community-engaged research, and intervention development to generate evidence that can be translated into practice, programs, and policy.

A hallmark of Dr. Hernandez-Green’s leadership is her commitment to combining scientific rigor with lived experience and community expertise. She works closely with women, families, community-based organizations, health systems, policymakers, and philanthropic partners to ensure that research questions, interventions, and dissemination strategies are grounded in real-world needs and positioned for meaningful impact.

She is also deeply committed to developing the next generation of scientists and leaders. Through mentorship of students, postdoctoral fellows, junior faculty, and community-based professionals, she has helped build multidisciplinary teams, research infrastructure, and pathways that strengthen capacity in maternal and women’s health.

Across her work, Dr. Hernandez-Green is guided by the belief that sustainable change requires rigorous science, courageous leadership, authentic partnership, and a commitment to health equity and justice. Her work reflects a broader vision of leadership that not only identifies disparities, but also builds the evidence, people, systems, and solutions needed to transform them.

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