Dr. Monthé-Drèze is a neonatologist, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, and physician-scientist in the Department of Pediatrics at Women and Infants Hospital. She completed her training in pediatrics and neonatal-perinatal medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, where she developed a research focus on the developmental origins of childhood obesity and adverse neurodevelopment, with particular emphasis on the first 1,000 days of life, beginning in the periconceptional and prenatal periods.
Her overarching scientific mission is to define the biological mechanisms through which maternal obesity and related metabolic perturbations before and during pregnancy become biologically embedded in the developing child, shaping growth, neurodevelopment, and long-term metabolic health.The long-term goal of this work is to identify modifiable pathways and critical developmental windows that can inform novel periconceptional and early-life interventions in pregnancies complicated by obesity and dysmetabolism to improve child health.
A defining strength of Dr. Monthé-Drèze’s research program is its mechanistic and translational focus. Her work moves beyond epidemiologic associations to investigate how early metabolic and nutritional exposures may alter developmental biology, including neural circuits involved in appetite regulation, reward processing, and behavioral control, thereby shaping later susceptibility to obesity and metabolic disease. She leads multidisciplinary translational and observational studies that integrate nutritional science, biomarker and multi-omic approaches, neonatal neuroimaging, behavioral phenotyping, and longitudinal growth modeling.
Dr. Monthé-Drèze has developed a research portfolio spanning complementary prenatal and postnatal mechanisms of developmental programming. In parallel with her work on prenatal metabolic exposures, she and her team investigate lactational pathways that may influence early appetitive regulation and growth, as well as glycemia-mediated mechanisms linking maternal dysmetabolic states with offspring neurodevelopment. Through this integrated program, Dr. Monthé-Drèze is building a distinctive research niche at the intersection of maternal-fetal metabolism, developmental neuroscience, and childhood obesity prevention.
Complementing her research program, Dr. Monthé-Drèze has built a strong record of educational leadership and mentorship. She has mentored students, residents, and fellows in research and quality improvement, taught clinical epidemiology to first-year medical and dental students, and expanded her impact nationally through co-leadership of the NIH/NIDDK-sponsored INSPIRE initiative. Spanning 11 Nutrition Obesity Research Centers, INSPIRE provides structured mentorship and national speaking opportunities to support the career development and visibility of early-career investigators in obesity research.
