Florence P. Haseltine

Florence P. Haseltine, Ph.D., M.D.
2013 Alma Dea Morani Renaissance Award Recipient

Dr. Haseltine has been at the forefront of health technology since the early 1980s. She is an innovator and inventor holding numerous patents. Her current activities include developing mobile apps for the field of reproductive sciences and her latest app, Embryo, has been selected for highlighting on gsa.gov and has received a group award from the National Library of Medicine. She continues to develop Apps for mobile devices in order to share the huge archived biological data bases available to the public. Her Genomics app is to be released shortly.

Dr. Haseltine consults in the area of medical and biomedical research for developers of databases, scientific software, webpage designers, as well as to manufacturers of medical devices. Her company, Haseltine Systems manufactures containers to protect wheelchairs and she holds both design and business patents. Dr. Haseltine now is the principal of Haseltine Systems.

At heart she is a pioneer who has accepted few limits. As Director of the Center for Population Research of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, at the National Institutes of Health, she led the way for advances in contraception research and other critical health areas. She is a fighter and has tirelessly promoted the advancement of women and was the founding editor of the Journal for Women’s Health. In 1990 she founded the Society for the Advancement of Women’s Health Research (SWHR). Retiring in 2012, she was named Emerita Scientist.

In 1964 she received a B.A. in Biophysics from the University of California-Berkeley. Receiving her Ph.D. in Biophysics in 1970 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she went on to graduating with an M.D. in 1972 from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She interned at the University of Pennsylvania and did a residency at Boston Hospital for Women (Brigham & Women’s Hospital). At Yale University she held several positions in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecologist and is board certified Obstetrician/Gynecologist and Reproductive Endocrinologist. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine, since 1993, and in 2012 received the Lifetime Achievement Award for the Health and Dignity of Women and Girls 2012 from the Friends of UNFPA.

Biography from the Foundation for the History of Women in Medicine website, here.