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There was a point when Judy Aschner’s mother worried that by choosing medicine, her daughter might never find time to have her own babies. “My mother asked, ‘Don’t you ever want to get married and have children?’ She believed a career in medicine was mutually exclusive with her goal of becoming a grandmother. Four children and more than 30 years later, her recollection is that it was all her idea in the first place,” Aschner recalled with a laugh. Her mother need not have worried. In addition to caring for her own family, Aschner spends her days caring for critically ill newborns as director of neonatology at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. “The hours are long, the patients high risk, the decision-making fast paced, and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit venue unpredictable,” she said of her specialty. “As a pediatric resident, you either love it or hate it. I loved it then, and I love it still.” Aschner said there are few fields in medicine that have experienced as rapid a pace of advancement as neonatal intensive care. Despite this, she is frustrated by the knowledge gaps that still exist. “In addition to patient care responsibilities, I have an NIH-funded laboratory where our investigations focus on the vexing clinical problem of neonatal pulmonary hypertension. I am also actively involved in clinical trials in neonatology. To me, these activities are inextricably linked and symbiotic. I am a better clinician because I do bench research, and my greatest strength in the lab is my understanding of the relevant clinical issues.” Not only does she hope to use research to fill in the gaps in scientific knowledge, but she is also passionate about educating the next generation of neonatologists and using education to fill in the societal gaps that have led Tennessee to one of the highest rates of premature births and infant mortality in the nation. Aschner has been instrumental in helping launch the statewide collaborative TIPQC –– Tennessee Initiative for Perinatal Quality Care. “Everyone wants to do a better job, but the infrastructure has been missing in Tennessee to make the needed systematic changes,” she said. “TIPQC will identify barriers to optimal birth outcomes and promote the use of evidence-based clinical practices and quality improvement methodologies for obstetric and neonatal intensive care patients.” In addition to this latest project, Aschner has been involved in international teaching efforts to improve neonatal outcomes around the globe. She serves as vice-chair of the international teaching organization IPOKRaTES. “In some ways, everything I do is teaching … just the audience changes. I love to teach. That’s the reason I knew I would stay in academia.” Although she and her family spent nearly a decade in North Carolina affiliated with Wake Forest, the entire family happily embraced Nashville and Vanderbilt University. Her husband, Michael, is a highly regarded Stahlman Professor of Neurosciences at Vanderbilt. Daughter, Yael, is a second-year resident in internal medicine at Vanderbilt and has recently become engaged to Evan Perel. The Aschners’ oldest son, Eitan, is a recent graduate of Vanderbilt School of Engineering and is currently working in healthcare technology in China. Younger sons, Nadav and Amir, are both undergraduates at Vanderbilt. While she and Michael love to travel to exotic places, most days find her close to home juggling the many hats she wears. “I enjoy and am fulfilled by all the aspects of my academic career,” she said. “I spend my working hours in a stimulating and intellectually robust environment. What could be better than this?”

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