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Kenneth Lyons Jones, MD, is Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and was for 50 years Chief of the Division of Dysmorphology and Teratology in the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, I co-direct the Center for Better Beginnings. I am one of two physicians who first described the fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) in 1973, and I have clinically evaluated hundreds of children prenatally exposed to alcohol in the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Italy, South Africa, South Korea, and Poland. I have led numerous research studies involving pregnant women, environmental exposures, and birth and child health outcomes. For 40 years I directed the Birth Defects Clinic at UCSD where I evaluated children from throughout southern California. In 1976 I founded the California Teratogen Information Service which is now referred to as Mother To Baby. Similar programs have been started throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Ukraine, Japan Australia and South America all modeled after our program. I am the author of Recognizable Patterns of Human Malformation, which is in its 8th edition.

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Kathleen T. Mitchell, MHS, LCADC, is Senior Vice President of FASD Prevention and Recovery Services, FASD United. She served as Vice President and Spokesperson for FASD United (formerly the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome-NOFAS) for 24 years. She holds a Master of Human Services (MHS) degree and is a licensed clinical alcohol and drug counselor (LCADC). Ms. Mitchell served as principal investigator (PI) and project officer for government projects that aimed to prevent FASD, reduce stigma, and support families and individuals living with FASD. She taught at Georgetown and Northwestern University Medical Schools and served on the special committee of the World Health Organization (WHO) developing guidelines for the identification and management of substance use disorders in pregnancy. In 2004, she founded the international birth mother mentorship program, the Circle of Hope (COH) and in 2020, founded Recovering Mothers Anonymous (RMA). She is a noted invited speaker on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD), Women and Addiction and Stigma and has presented for over three decades both nationally and globally. In 1990, Ms. Mitchell testified to Congress at the first hearing on FAS/FAE and in 1992 and 1994 she testified at hearings that later resulted in warning labels on all alcohol products. She has served as an expert to advise media and has been featured in documentaries, television, and news stories, including National Public Radio, NBC’s Later Today Show, BBC Radio, Washington Post, and other. She authored or co-authored twenty-three published papers, and authored handbooks, chapters, and curricula. Ms. Mitchell continues to speak at conferences and provide training and supports the COH speakers bureau that partners with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) in speaking at grand rounds at medical facilities across the U.S.

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Janine Austin Clayton, M.D., Associate Director for Research on Women’s Health and Director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is the architect of the NIH policy requiring scientists to consider sex as a biological variable across the research spectrum. This policy is part of NIH’s initiative to enhance reproducibility through rigor and transparency. As co-chair of the NIH Working Group on Women in Biomedical Careers with the NIH Director, Dr. Clayton also leads NIH’s efforts to advance women in science careers. In 2021, Dr. Clayton was elected to the Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Prior to joining the ORWH, Dr. Clayton was the Deputy Clinical Director of the National Eye Institute (NEI) for seven years. A board-certified ophthalmologist, Dr. Clayton’s research interests include autoimmune ocular diseases and the role of sex and gender in health and disease. She is the author of more than 120 scientific publications, journal articles, and book chapters.

Dr. Clayton, a native Washingtonian, received her undergraduate degree with honors from Johns Hopkins University and her medical degree from Howard University College of Medicine. She completed a residency in ophthalmology at the Medical College of Virginia. Dr. Clayton completed fellowship training in cornea and external disease at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital and in uveitis and ocular immunology at NEI.

Dr. Clayton has received numerous awards, including the Senior Achievement Award from the Board of Trustees of the American Academy of Ophthalmology in 2008 and the European Uveitis Patient Interest Association Clinical Uveitis Research Award in 2010. She was selected as a 2010 Silver Fellow by the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. In 2015, she was awarded the American Medical Women’s Association Lila A. Wallis Women’s Health Award and the Wenger Award for Excellence in Public Service. Dr. Clayton was granted the Bernadine Healy Award for Visionary Leadership in Women’s Health in 2016. She was also selected as an honoree for the Woman’s Day Red Dress Awards and the American Medical Association’s Dr. Nathan Davis Awards for Outstanding Government Service in 2017. In 2023, Dr. Clayton received the American Medical Women’s Association AMWA Presidential Award.