Ann Bryant Borders 2009

Ann Bryant Borders

BS Biology ’94   
Chicago, Ill.

Ann Bryant Borders makes a difference every day for mothers and their babies.

As an assistant professor of maternal-fetal medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, she studies the effects of chronic maternal stress on preterm birth. She is currently focused on addressing the higher rates of preterm birth among low income African-American mothers.

Borders has been an advocate for maternal health issues throughout her career. Shortly after starting a fellowship at Northwestern in 2005, she worked with the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control to lobby the Illinois legislature to pass legislation that implemented rapid HIV testing in the state’s birthing hospitals. Thanks to her team’s successful efforts, multiple babies in Illinois have been saved from HIV. In 2008, Borders started a breastfeeding peer counselor education program at the prenatal clinic to serve low income patients affiliated with Northwestern Memorial Hospital. This year she received grant funding to expand the program to add weekly free prenatal education classes for the pregnant patients attending the clinic.

Borders earned an M.S. in health policy from the London School of Hygiene in 1998, a M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1999, and an M.P.H. from Northwestern in 2007, but she credits her undergraduate experience at Iowa State – specifically her work on the VEISHEA committee, with shaping the leadership ability that has helped her excel professionally today. Borders was also active as an ISU student with the Honors Program, Pi Beta Phi, and Student Alumni Association. She received ISU’s Wallace E. Barron All-University Senior Award in 1994, the Harvard Medical School Outstanding Resident Teaching Award in 2002 and 2003, and the Brigham & Women’s Hospital/Massachusetts General Hospital’s OB/GYN Humanism Award in 2003.

Borders and her husband, Will, are the parents of Vera and Katherine. She is a lifetime member of the ISU Alumni Association.