Stansfield named MCG Department of Pediatrics vice chair for research

Dr. Brian K. Stansfield, a neonatologist and federally funded investigator at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University and the Children’s Hospital of Georgia, has been named vice chair for research in the MCG Department of Pediatrics.

Stansfield, a 2004 MCG graduate, also is a member of the MCG Vascular Biology Center.

He is principal investigator on a $2.2 million grant from the National Eye Institute examining the role of inflammation in retinopathy of prematurity, a potentially blinding eye disorder that primarily affects the smallest and most vulnerable of premature infants. He also is a coinvestigator and site PI for a $2.6 million grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases examining responsive parenting and its effect on sleep and rapid weight gain in Black infants.

Prior to his appointment as vice chair, Stansfield led a task force to analyze existing pediatric research in the department and across the university and then outlined a vision for growth, including cultivating partnerships with other departments, forming a research advisory committee, supporting research by underrepresented in medicine pediatric faculty and fostering research among residents, fellows and students by developing a portfolio of short-term research projects.

Stansfield is immediate past president of the Southern Society for Pediatric Research, a forum for pediatric investigators from the South, whose primary mission is to support and grow the next generation of academic pediatricians and to propel them to national and international recognition.

In 2015, he received the SSPR Basic Science Young Investigator Award for his work on genes that regulate macrophage function and their contribution to cardiovascular development. The next year he received the SSPR Clinical Science Young Investigator Award, recognizing exemplary clinical research by an early career investigator, for his studies identifying risks of metabolic disease and adiposity associated with being a low- or high-birthweight baby. He is the only person in the history of the SSPR to win both awards.

Stansfield also is a section editor for the journal Pediatric Research. He has served as an abstract reviewer and session moderator for the Society for Pediatric Research and Pediatric Academic Societies annual meetings. He is chair of the Department of Pediatrics’ Resident Research and Pediatric Grand Rounds and Lectureships Oversight committees.

An honored educator, Stansfield received a 2015 MCG Exemplary Teaching Award and the Outstanding Young Clinical Science Faculty Award from MCG’s Faculty Senate in 2018.

He completed his pediatric residency at MCG and CHOG and a fellowship in neonatal-perinatal medicine and a National Institutes of Health Pediatric Scientist Development Program fellowship, both at Indiana University School of Medicine. He returned to MCG in 2013.