Laura Stachel M.D., M.P.H.

Laura Stachel 2Laura Stachel is the Associate Director of West African Emergency Obstetric Research, for the Bixby Center.  She is a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist with fourteen years of clinical experience.  She obtained her MD from University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and left private practice to pursue public health in 2003.

Laura received her MPH in Maternal and Child Health from UC Berkeley in 2006. She is currently pursuing her DrPH through the School of Public Health; her dissertation centers on emergency obstetric care in Nigeria. She has done extensive work in Northern Nigeria delineating challenges faced by Nigerian health workers Laura is the co-principal investigator of a Population Council ethnographic study aimed at improving the standard of maternity care in Northern Nigerian state hospitals. Laura has conducted several community-based projects in developing countries including (1) a nutritional assessment of pregnant and postpartum mothers in the Western Guatemalan highlands, and (2) an assessment of the effects of fluoride on the incidence of dental caries in El Salvadorean children.

Laura is the founder of WE CARE Solar a non profit dedicated to saving the lives of women and infants by enhancing emergency obstetric care though the use of solar powered lighting, communication and emergency equipment.  She also serves on the Editorial Board for the Berkeley Wellness Letter and is a lecturer at the UCB School of Public Health.