Dr. Dani Dumitriu, MD, PhD

Dani Dumitriu, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics (in Psychiatry) and Director of the Center for Early Relational Health. She dedicates 80% of her time to research and 20% to active pediatric practice in the Newborn Medicine Unit at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York. Dr. Dumitriu is internationally recognized for her expertise in pediatrics, neuroscience, resilience, family, and clinician-inclusive study design, and dyadic measures of parent-child health, such as maternal-infant connection, prenatal and early postnatal influences (including stress) on maternal-infant health, and the relationship between early relational health and life course health outcomes. The uniting principle of Dr. Dumitriu’s multifaceted research program is to actuate a strengths-based pivot in pediatrics: preventing pathology by promoting resiliency. From basic science through clinical & implementation studies, her multi-modal, multi-species, multi-scale research focuses on understanding and harnessing the neurocircuits of resilience, toward spearheading novel approaches to universal primary prevention. One of the top-funded researchers in the Department of Pediatrics, Dr. Dumitriu, also actively leads field-building work. She co-founded the Maternal Child Research Operations (MaCRO) Consortium at Columbia (a coordinating hub for research that spans obstetrics, pediatrics, and psychiatry) and is revolutionizing family- and pediatrician-inclusive research through a unique partnership between CERH, Reach Out and Read, and Nurture Connection (at Georgetown University’s Thrive Center for Children, Families, and Communities). Together, they co-lead the movement to meaningfully advance the field of ERH. Dr. Dumitriu further serves on the steering committee for Nurture Connection and on the Foundation for Social Connection’s Scientific Advisory Council.