Perimenopause Moderators' Biographies

Sherry A. Marts, Ph.D.
Vice President, Scientific Affairs
Society for Women’s Health Research
Washington, DC

Dr. Sherry Marts directs scientific programs at the Society for Women’s Health Research, including SWHR’s conference series on sex-based biology, the “Some Things Only a Woman Can Do” public education campaign on clinical trials, conferences on Sex and Gene Expression (SAGE), and the Isis Fund for Sex-based Biology Research. She serves as scientific spokesperson for SWHR.

Prior to joining SWHR as scientific director in 1998, Marts was a senior analyst at the consulting firm of Abt Associates, where she served as scientific research administrator for the HIV Network for Prevention Trials, under a contract with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. From 1991-1996, she was director of research grants at the American Health Assistance Foundation. From 1988-1991, she worked in the office of the vice president for research and development at the American Red Cross biomedical research laboratories in Rockville, Md., where she managed the Red Cross intramural research grants program and administered the Red Cross research ethics review and training programs. She later returned to the Red Cross as a consultant in research ethics and regulatory affairs.

Marts received a bachelor’s of science in applied biology from The Hatfield Polytechnic (now Hertfordshire University, UK) in 1981 and her doctorate in cell and molecular biology from Duke University in 1986. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Lineberger Cancer Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1988.

Peter Schmidt, M.D.
Investigator, Reproductive Endocrine Studies Unit
National Institute of Mental Health
Bethesda, MD

Dr. Peter Schmidt received his bachelor of medicine degree from the Royal College of Surgeons and the National University of Ireland. He performed his medical internship, completed his M.D. degree and residency in psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He then joined the NIMH as an Ontario Mental Health Foundation Fellow. After completing his NIMH research fellowship, Dr. Schmidt served as the director of the NIMH Psychiatry Consultation Service within the NIH Clinical Center between 1990 and 1995. Over the last ten years, Dr. Schmidt has pursued his research interests more actively; currently he is chief for NIMH’s Unit on Reproductive Endocrine Studies, Behavioral Endocrinology Branch and Director of the Institute’s Outpatient Clinic.

An expanding proportion of the population is entering mid-life, and the availability of a variety of hormone (or hormone-like) therapies for both men and women supports the need for systematic evaluations of the potential psychotropic effects of these compounds. Dr. Schmidt’s laboratory is interested in the neurobehavioral effects of gonadal steroids in humans, including their roles in regulation of mood state in women with menstrual cycle-related mood disorders and depression around the time of menopause or following childbirth. His investigations have been primarily focused on the characterization of affective disorders occurring during the perimenopause, the identification of the role of gonadal steroids in these mood disorders, and the investigation of the neuroregulatory consequences of the presence and absence of gonadal steroids.

These studies will help provide insight into the mechanisms underlying affective disorders in general and, additionally, may help define the way in which gonadal steroids modify the course or expression of affective disorders. Finally, the information obtained by these protocols will help identify the predictive utility of endocrine measures in perimenopause-related depression and help define the role of hormonal therapies in mood disorders, in particular those disorders occurring at mid-life in men and women.