Clarisa R. Gracia, MD, MSCE

Richard S. Legro, MD

Our guest editor this month is Clarisa Gracia, MD, MSCE who is director of the Fertility Preservation Program at Penn Fertility and Associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Gracia received her undergraduate degree from Amherst College majoring in Spanish, her medical degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Medicine, Buffalo, NY and completed both her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology and her fellowship in Reproductive Endocrinology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. She has also subsequently earned an M.S.C.E. in Epidemiology and Statistics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Gracia has earned many awards in her relatively brief career. This includes being selected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society in medical school, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine In-training Research Award Paper, The Emily Hartshorne Mudd Award (given for significant contributions to the field of family health), and The Ira and Ester Rosenwaks New Investigator Award presented by the Board of Directors of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Dr. Gracia has served multiple professional societies in an assortment of roles, including notably serving as the Chair of the Fertility Preservation Special Interest Group at The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, being an ad hoc reviewer of multiple NIH study sections and being selected to serve as an oral examiner of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Dr. Gracia has had an active research career with a special interest in oncofertility and fertility preservation. She has published extensively in the field with many original studies establishing biomarkers of fertility loss and potential, the natural fertility history of patients after cancer treatment, methods of fertility preservation in both males and females. She has also served on multiple guideline committees to establish best practices in this emerging field. This experience with patients with a wide variety of pre-existing health conditions has led to an interest in the effects of malignancies and treatment of thyroid and other related endocrine dysfunction. She has also explored the effects of superovulation on thyroid function as well as the effects of thyroid dysfunction on response to infertility therapies. This background helped shape her interest and her expertise in assembling this issue to address the role of the thyroid in reproduction, an area of changing practice and increased scrutiny in reproductive health.