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Catherine Racowsky, Ph.D., HCLD

Dr. Racowsky is Director of the ART Laboratory at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and an associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Harvard Medical School.  She previously directed the ART Laboratory at the University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona.  Having graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Zoology at the University of Oxford, she received her Ph.D. in Reproductive Physiology from the University of Cambridge in England, and did post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard Medical School, first with Dr. Koji Yoshinaga, and then with Dr. John Biggers. 

She is a peer-reviewer for numerous journals in reproductive medicine and has served on a number of editorial boards.  She has been a member of several professional committees including her current membership on the SART Executive Council and the ASRM Practice Committee.  She is also the 2006-2007 President of the New England Fertility Society. 

Dr. Racowsky’s research interests include environmental factors affecting egg quality, the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying oocyte maturation in vivo and in vitro, and methodologies for assessing human embryo developmental competency. 

She has authored over 50 peer-reviewed papers on various aspects of mammalian oocyte and embryo physiology, and has published several news releases and book chapters. Dr. Racowsky has contributed to the establishment of guidelines for human embryonic stem cell research through the 2005 National Academies of Sciences workshop to develop these guidelines, and currently sits on the Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight Committee of Partners’ Healthcare in Boston.