Katherine Semrau

Katherine Semrau, PhD, MPH, is director of the BetterBirth Program at Ariadne Labs. As Program Director, Dr. Semrau oversees the research and execution of the BetterBirth Program.

Dr. Semrau has over 15 years of experience in the fields of maternal and child health and epidemiology. Her research has focused on prevention of maternal and child mortality, improvement of quality of care, and prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Currently, Dr. Semrau is overseeing a large randomized controlled trial of a coaching-based intervention to increase use and adherence to the WHO Safe Childbirth Checklist.

Previously, as the co-Principal Investigator of the recently completed Zambia Chlorhexidine Application Trial (ZamCAT), Dr. Semrau led the epidemiology and data analysis team for this cluster randomized control trial of >39,000 births in Southern Province, Zambia. As a team member of the Zambia Exclusive Breastfeeding Study, she lived in Zambia for over 3 years running the study laboratory and coordinating all enrollment, data collection and data management activities. She then returned to the U.S. and collaborated on multiple projects in sub-Saharan Africa, India and the Republic of Georgia.

In addition, Katherine is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Epidemiologist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the Division of Global Health Equity.

Dr. Semrau’s dissertation research focused on breast problems, including mastitis and abscess, and HIV in HIV-infected women in Zambia. Dr. Semrau has a PhD in epidemiology from Boston University and an MPH in international health and epidemiology from the University of Alabama-Birmingham.