Saraswathi Vedam RM, PhD, FACNM, Sci D (hc)

Saraswathi Vedam is Professor of Midwifery and Lead Investigator at the Birth Place Lab in the Faculty of Medicine at University of British Columbia (UBC). She was principal investigator for the provincial and national studies Changing Childbirth in BC and Giving Voice to Mothers,  which led to the development of all of the components embedded in the JEPS program. She brings extensive experience with community based participatory research methods, quality measurement, instrument development, and health professional curriculum development. She has successfully led transdisciplinary teams in the co-creation and implementation of pragmatic guidelines, metrics, curricula, and strategies to improve equity and quality in perinatal care across North America.  She was PI for the Access and Integration Maternity care Mapping (AIMM) Study where a multi-disciplinary team designed and applied the novel MISS scoring system to examine the impact of regulatory environment for integration of midwives on maternal-newborn outcomes. She also led a transdisciplinary team to conduct the national, 5year (2018-2023) CIHR-funded study, Research Examining Stories of Pregnancy and Childbirth in Canada Today (RESPCCT), with a focus on amplifying voices of communities that are seldom heard.  In 2017, she was select as one of the inaugural cohort of Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Health Professional Investigators.