Reproductive endocrinology and fertility researchers

John Rock (physician)

John Rock (1890–1984) was an American obstetrician-gynecologist and Harvard professor who co-developed the birth control pill and, in 1944, achieved the first fertilization of a human egg in vitro.

John Studd (gynaecologist)

John Studd, full name John William Winston Studd, was a British gynaecologist and professor at Imperial College London known for pioneering menopause treatment and hormone replacement therapy.

Jonathan L. Tilly

Jonathan L. Tilly is an American reproductive biologist at Northeastern University known for research on ovarian aging and stem cells that may generate new eggs.

Joshua Yarrow

Joshua F. Yarrow is an American rehabilitation scientist studying sex-steroid hormones, bone, and muscle after spinal cord injury; he directs the Eastern Colorado GRECC and won a 2014 PECASE award.

Judith Stephenson

Judith Stephenson is a British physician-scientist holding the Margaret Pyke Chair of Sexual & Reproductive Health at UCL, known for research on chlamydia screening and preconception health.

Kaye Wellings

Kaye Wellings is a British social scientist and Professor of Sexual and Reproductive Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, best known as founder of the Natsal surveys.

Kelle Harbert Moley

Kelle H. Moley is a reproductive endocrinologist elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2014, known for research on metabolism, oocyte aging, and fertility.

Sep 20, 2026

Kevin Catt

Kevin J. Catt is a retired endocrinologist and physician-scientist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, known for research on gonadotropin and angiotensin receptors.

Kristina Gemzell-Danielsson is a Swedish physician-scientist in obstetrics and gynecology, professor at Karolinska Institutet since 2006, known for medical abortion research with mifepristone and misoprostol and for the 2024 PRIMA trial.

Ludwig Haberlandt

Ludwig Haberlandt (1885–1932) was an Austrian physiologist in Innsbruck who first demonstrated in animals that hormones of pregnancy could temporarily suppress fertility, proposing hormonal contraception about four decades before the Pill.

Makio Shozu

Makio Shozu is a Japanese physician-scientist in obstetrics and gynecology, a professor at Chiba University known for research on aromatase and the genetics of gestational trophoblastic disease.

Maria Dufau

Maria L. Dufau is an Argentine-trained reproductive endocrinologist who headed the Section on Molecular Endocrinology at the NIH's child health institute, known for work on LH/hCG receptors and prolactin receptor genes.

Marleen Temmerman

Marleen Temmerman is a Belgian gynecologist and women's health researcher, Professor Emerita at Ghent University, who led WHO reproductive health research from 2012 to 2015.

Martha Hickey

Martha Hickey is an Australian clinical psychologist and obstetrician-gynecologist who is Chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Melbourne and led The Lancet's 2024 menopause series.

Miriam Menkin

Miriam Menkin, born Miriam Friedman (1901–1992), was a Latvian-born American laboratory researcher who performed the first fertilization of a human egg outside the body in 1944.

Nancy F. Woods

Nancy F. Woods, also known as Nancy Fugate Woods, is an American nurse scientist and dean emeritus of the University of Washington School of Nursing, known for menopause research.

Nanette Frances Santoro

Nanette Frances Santoro is an American reproductive endocrinologist and E. Stewart Taylor Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Colorado, elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2018.

Norbert Gleicher

Norbert Gleicher is a reproductive medicine specialist who has led the Center for Human Reproduction in New York since 1999 and published over 500 papers.

Olive Watkins Smith

Olive Watkins Smith (1901–1983) was an American biochemist who directed the Fearing Research Laboratory in Boston and wrote the 1948 paper promoting DES in pregnancy.

Pascale Allotey

Pascale Allotey is a global public health researcher who has directed the World Health Organization's Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research since 2022.

Patrick Steptoe

Patrick Christopher Steptoe was a British gynecologist who, with physiologist Robert Edwards, developed in vitro fertilization into a clinical treatment, culminating in Louise Brown's 1978 birth.

Paul C. MacDonald

Paul C. MacDonald (1930–1997) was an American physician-scientist at UT Southwestern who showed estrogen is synthesized in the brain and fat tissue of both sexes.

Philip D. Darney

Philip D. Darney, born 1943, is an American physician-scientist in contraception and reproductive health, a UCSF distinguished professor emeritus and founder of the Bixby Center.

Richard J. Sherins

Richard J. Sherins (1937–2024) was an American reproductive endocrinologist and andrologist whose NIH studies showed that chemotherapy damages testicular germ cells in an age- and dose-dependent way.

Richard M. Sharpe

Richard M. Sharpe is a reproductive biologist and professor at the University of Edinburgh, known for the 1993 estrogen hypothesis and the testicular dysgenesis syndrome hypothesis.

Robert Edwards (physiologist)

Robert G. Edwards (1925–2013) was a British physiologist at Cambridge who developed human in vitro fertilization, achieving the first IVF birth in 1978 and winning the 2010 Nobel Prize.

ROBERT M. BOYAR

Robert M. Boyar was an American endocrinologist whose 1972 study showed that luteinizing hormone secretion rises during sleep at puberty, giving a biologic index for identifying puberty.

Rose E. Frisch

Rose E. Frisch, born Rose Epstein (1918–2015), was an American biologist at Harvard whose research showed that a woman's body fat governs the onset of female fertility.

Ryuzo Yanagimachi

Ryuzo Yanagimachi (柳町隆造, 1928–2023) was a Japanese-born reproductive biologist at the University of Hawaii whose work established mammalian IVF, ICSI, and the first reproducible cloning of mice from adult cells.