Neonatology Online Course(s) & Continuing Education

Paulina is the mother of three multicultural Latino children and Project Director for Lifespan Local. Paulina earned her BS in Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University, a MS in Organizational leadership from the University of Denver and is completing her PhD in Health and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Colorado - Denver. Paulina has over 18 years of experience working with families with young children. As a Maternal Child Health specialist for Jefferson County Public Health, she developed a NICU follow-up home visitation program and the pediatric emergency preparedness plan, co-founded and coordinated the Conectando Network (former Adelante Jeffco), established community navigation and lactation support groups focused on the Latino Spanish speaking community, and lead other initiatives to support leadership and partnerships among communities and organizations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she managed the new program Whole Community Inclusion to ensure the pandemic response and recovery implementation included health equity practices that recognize the needs and the strengths of priority populations in the county. Her areas of current work include promoting perinatal and infant mental health along the continuum of care; building community capacity to navigate health and education systems; facilitating organizational change to embrace linguistic and culturally responsive practices; and establishing community-placed participatory programs to strengthen communities. She likes to be with people, learn from and with others, and connect passions for meaningful work.

Dr Mark Johnson is a consultant neonatologist at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust and an honorary senior clinical lecturer in neonatal medicine at the University of Southampton. He is also currently the clinical director for neonatal medicine in Southampton. Dr Johnson graduated in medicine (BM) from the University of Southampton in 2004, and undertook an intercalated degree in biomedical science during his medical training. Dr Johnson was awarded a prestigious NIHR doctoral research fellowship to fund his PhD, which he was awarded by the University of Southampton in 2015. Dr Johnson’s PhD focused on change management in neonatal care in the context of nutrition, successfully implementing improved nutritional practices in order to improve the growth of preterm infants. Dr Johnson's research centres around the nutritional care and growth of premature babies, and the implementation of practice change in order to improve care, and has published on these topics widely, including systematic reviews looking at the use of early parenteral nutrition in preterm infants, the impact of enhanced nutrition on the neurodevelopmental outcomes of preterm infants and the effect of preterm birth on body composition and growth. He has also contributed to national and international guidance on nutritional care.

Robin P. Glass, MS, OTR, IBCLC practices occupational therapy at Seattle Children's Hospital in Seattle, WA and is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation, at the University of Washington. Her clinical specialty is the treatment of infants, with a strong focus on feeding and swallowing issues. She provides treatment for hospitalized infants including the NICU with a wide range of medical and developmental diagnoses. She is NDT trained and is a 20 year Board Certified Lactation Consultant. Robin has extensive national and international experience speaking about infant feeding.

Robin has received numerous awards including the National Association of Neonatal Therapists (NANT) 2015 Pioneer Award and the 2018 Nancy Danoff Spirit of Service award from the Breastfeeding Coalition of WA and Nutrition First. Robin has co-authored numerous journal articles as well as the book Feeding and Swallowing Disorders in Infancy: Assessment and Management.

Mariana Colmenares Castano was born in Mexico City, and from an early age she was fascinated by animals and nature.She studied medicine at the National University of Mexico (UNAM), and foundher passion as a pediatrician doing her residency at the National Pediatric Institute. When her first child was born she witnessed the lack of knowledge and commitment to breastfeeding within the medical profession, and so she decided to specialize in breastfeeding medicine. She certified as a Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) in 2011.Mariana is a member of the International Lactation Consultant Association, the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, and a proud founding member of the National Lactation Consultant Association of Mexico (ACCLAM), where she served on the Board of Directors as Education Coordinator (2014-2019). She is part of board director for the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine for a 3 year period (2019-2022) and recently named as secretary for the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. Mariana is a member of the team for Breastfeeding Country Index BFCI, a project from Yale University and Universidad Iberoamericana. She is consultant for the National Health Institute in Mexico and has collaborated with UNICEF in breastfeeding projects and part of the steering committee for the WHO. She has spoken at national and international conferences, co-published numerous articles and co-authored a chapter for the National Academy of Medicine. At the moment she is a Clinical Fellow in Community Paediatrics in London.

Bianca completed her undergraduate nursing and midwifery training at the University of Queensland. She has been neonatal nursing for the last six years, and in that time completed her Postgraduate Certificate in Nursing Practice (Neonatal Intensive Care) and her Masters of Advanced Nursing Practice (Minor Thesis) at the University of Melbourne.

In 2016, Bianca participated in a Nursing Research program entitled ‘Building Evidence with Support to Transform (BEST) Practice at the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) in Melbourne, Victoria Australia, which were the beginnings of her nursing research journey. She investigated nursing assessment of pain in neonates, and instigated a hospital-wide change in the pain assessment tool utilised in neonates. Since then she has evaluated the clinical utility and inter-rater reliability of the modified Pain Assessment Tool (mPAT) that is now used at the RCH. She is currently a Nursing Research Clinical Nurse Consultant at the RCH.

Elizabeth began her career in maternal health in 2000 after earning a Master of Public Health with an emphasis in maternal child nutrition. She accepted a job teaching childbirth education at the University of Utah Hospital and taught for two years before being promoted to the coordinator of that department.

When the hospital decided to begin the journey to become Baby Friendly, Elizabeth was asked to be on that committee and eventually was asked to be the Baby Friendly Coordinator. During this process, it was a natural step for her to earn her IBCLC. Recently Elizabeth was promoted to the manager of the lactation inpatient team in addition to her other responsibilities.

An advocate for maternal health in all areas, Elizabeth serves as the board chair and founding board member for the Mountain West Mothers' Milk Bank. She is the president elect for the International Childbirth Education Association, and the secretary for PSI-Utah. She sits on the University of Utah Perinatal Bereavement Committee, Discharge Quality Committee, and have served on multiple other committees over the years.

She has been married for over thirty years and is the mom of three children. She still has time to pursue other passions such as singing, gardening, exercising, and spending time with her friends and family.

In non-covid times, she can be found on Friday nights calling Bingo for her church and volunteering in other capacities.

Jim Thigpen has been a pediatric clinical pharmacist for 30 years and is currently an associate professor of pharmacy at East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. When he began his training at MUSC in Charleston, SC, they were investigating Survanta and he has been witness to and a participant in the evolving world of neonatology since. He has spoken at several neonatal nursing conferences over the years and enjoys helping other practitioners learn about and apply pharmacotherapy in this special population.

Dr. Marin is currently an Assistant Professor at Augusta University, and is an active researcher in the Level IV NICU at Children’s Hospital of Georgia. She received her BSN from the University of Tennessee, her MSN from Stony Brook and her PhD from Emory University. Dr. Marin’s program of research is focused on defining non-invasive methods to predict early-onset acute kidney injury in preterm infants, including analysis of metabolomics, proteomics, the gut-kidney microbiome axis, and renal hypoxia measured by near-infrared spectroscopy as they relate to subclinical and actual acute kidney disease.

Dr Embleton has worked in neonatal medicine for the past 25 years, completing clinical training and a research doctorate in neonatal nutrition in the UK, and a neonatal fellowship in Vancouver, Canada. He has worked as a Consultant Neonatal Pediatrician in Newcastle, UK since 2002, one of the largest UK neonatal units, caring for sick preterm and term born neonates. He leads a broad portfolio of research focused on nutrition and gut health in preterm infants. Areas of work include determining patterns of early gut microbial colonization, and how these may predict the development of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and sepsis. He is a project team member of large neonatal feeding trials recruiting >5000 infants in the UK, as well as coordinating mechanistic studies using microbiomic and metabolomic analyses. He chairs the multi-disciplinary UK Neonatal Nutrition Network (N3) and is a member of the Committee of Nutrition for ESPGHAN.

Amanda is a children's nurse, having worked on pediatric wards and in the community supporting children with complex health needs, although over ten years of her nursing career have been in neonatal care, where she is further qualified in specialty (QiS). She trained and volunteered in breastfeeding peer support two years into her nursing career, ultimately sitting the exam to become an IBCLC to ensure that the families within neonatal care had access to an infant feeding specialist familiar with their journey. Amanda has since further specialized in Neonatal Homecare, is a Nurse Practitioner in restrictive lingual frenulum, and has worked as an Infant Feeding Lead for a regional surgical NICU and SCBU, as well as a regional Infant Feeding Advisor to ten neonatal units across a regional network. She has recently been appointed to the Board of Trustees for the Lactation Consultants of Great Britain (LCGB), where she is the Neonatal Lead.