Shannon Hawkins, MD, PhD
Shannon Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in Obstetrics & Gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine. After receiving her B.S. from Ball State University in Indiana, she went on to obtain her Ph.D. in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Indiana University. After completion of her medical school training at Indiana University, she began an obstetrics and gynecology residency at Baylor College of Medicine (2002-2006), where she was an academic chief resident. During her residency, she was mentored by Dr. Matthew Anderson and studied the role of COUP-TFII in ovarian cancer. For this work, she was awarded the Pritchard Prize for Resident Research from the Texas Association of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
As junior faculty at Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Hawkins became an ASRM-NICHD scholar of the Reproductive Scientist Development Program in 2006 where she worked under the mentorship of Dr. Martin M. Matzuk. This research project was awarded the NIH Loan Repayment Award for Contraception and Infertility Research. As a young physician-scientist, Dr. Hawkins was also a scholar of Baylor College of Medicine’s Women’s Reproductive Health Research Development Program. She is board certified in obstetrics and gynecology and maintains a general Ob/Gyn practice within the Harris County Hospital District where she trains many residents. Her laboratory focuses on the study of genomic variants in women with endometriosis, the role of microRNAs in the mouse and human uterus, and the progression of endometriosis to invasive ovarian cancer. Her Liz Tilberis Award will focus on the role of ARID1A in the transformation of endometriosis to ovarian cancer using human tissues, in vitro culture systems, and mouse models.