Dr. Nia Heard-Garris is a pediatrician and researcher in the Department of Pediatrics at Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University; and, in the Division of Academic General Pediatrics and Mary Ann & J. Milburn Smith Child Health Research, Outreach, and Advocacy Center at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Dr. Heard-Garris is an active member in the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and serves as the Chair and founding member of the Provisional Section of Minority Health, Equity, and Inclusion.
Dr. Heard-Garris's overarching research interests revolve around the relationship between adversities experienced in childhood subsequent child and adolescent health. Further, those interests also include the factors that contribute to a child’s ability to thrive despite these experiences. Through her research, she aims to generate the knowledge to help inform evidence-based interventions that allow pediatricians and policymaker’s to help build resilience in children and in the communities that support children. Her long-term goal is to understand the role of childhood stress in the development of pediatric illnesses and key mitigating factors, so that family-centered, culturally appropriate strategies can be developed to treat, prevent, and ultimately lessen the burden adversity