The Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR) is pleased to welcome Anna Chodos, MD, MPH, Shayna Mancuso, DO, FACOG, and Lauren Ruotolo to its Board of Directors in 2026. These three individuals bring an invaluable range of personal and professional expertise to SWHR’s Board, building upon the Society’s mission to advance women’s health through science, policy, and education while promoting research on sex differences to optimize women’s health and vision to make women’s health mainstream.
Dr. Anna Chodos is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General and the Division of Geriatrics, both within the Department of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco. Her work focuses on outpatient care in geriatrics and dementia care. As the Executive Director of Dementia Care Aware, she leads education and practice change initiatives to support primary care in detecting dementia and caring for people living with dementia. She is also the Principal Investigator of Caregivers As Partners In Care Teams (CAP-CT), a program that trains health care teams on how to work with caregivers. Additionally, Dr. Chodos serves as the Principal Investigator for a research consortium funded by the California Department of Public Health, studying the impact of early detection on disparities in dementia care among older adults from minority backgrounds. Clinically, Dr. Chodos works in the San Francisco Health Network and directs outpatient geriatrics, including a dementia clinic. She attended medical and public health school at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed an Internal Medicine Primary Care residency at UCSF-Zuckerberg San Francisco General and a Geriatrics clinical and research fellowship at UCSF. She is board-certified in Geriatrics and Internal Medicine.
Dr. Shayna Mancuso is a board-certified OB/GYN and serves as Head of Women’s Health, U.S. Medical Affairs at Astellas Pharma. She brings over 25 years of leadership in women’s health, integrating clinical experience with strategic vision to advance research and innovation for women worldwide.
Prior to Astellas, Dr. Mancuso served as Medical Director at AbbVie, leading evidence generation and medical education strategies. She maintained an active OB/GYN practice for nearly two decades.
Dr. Mancuso earned her medical degree from Western University of Health Sciences and completed her OB/GYN residency at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. Dr. Mancuso serves on the Steering Committee for the Innovation Equity Forum (IEF), a global platform convened by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation dedicated to advancing equitable research and development across women’s health. Dr. Mancuso also serves as a clinical advisor for HERA Biotech, an emerging innovator in AI-enabled diagnostics, where she provides strategic clinical leadership to advance technologies, shaping the future of women’s health.
Lauren Ruotolo is an author, public speaker, video producer, and content marketing leader, as well as a nationally recognized disability and women’s health advocate. She has worked with global brands including Johnson & Johnson, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Neutrogena, and Seventeen Magazine, using storytelling to humanize health, science, and lived experience. Born with McCune-Albright Syndrome—a rare genetic disease affecting the skeletal and endocrine systems—Lauren is the youngest woman on record in the United States to experience precocious puberty at just eight months old as her pituitary and ovaries work independently of each other. By the age of five, Lauren walked full time with forearm crutches. Rather than allowing her diagnosis to limit her, she transformed her lived experience into purpose, advocacy, professional success and impact. Through her speaking, writing, and advocacy, Lauren empowers others to embrace their uniqueness, challenge outdated systems, and advocate boldly for their health, visibility, and worth.
“Each of these women exemplify what it means to be a champion for women’s health across the health care ecosystem. We are so thrilled to be adding their crucial expertise to our board at a time when continued partnership and momentum in women’s health research cannot be overlooked,” said SWHR President and CEO Kathryn Schubert, MPP, CAE.
SWHR would like to express its deep appreciation and gratitude to Shontelle Dodson, PharmD, Jenelle S. Krishnamoorthy, PhD, and Marianne Slight for their Board service through 2025 and for their continued investment in women’s health. A full list of the 2026 SWHR Board of Directors is available here.