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Akhil Maheshwari, MD, is the Founding Chair of the GNS. He is an elected member of the Society for Pediatric Research/American Pediatric Society and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR); and a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh), the GNS, Indian College of Haematology, and the Interdisciplinary Academic Research and Innovation Society (Amsterdam). 

He received medical education at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi and the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh in India. He then relocated to the University of Florida at Gainesville, Florida for further training in clinical pediatrics and laboratory research. Two years later, he relocated with the same team to the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, Tampa, Florida (USF) to continue his research and for fellowship training in neonatology.

The image is a recent photograph of the Editor-in-Chief of our journal, the newborn.

He has served in faculty and departmental leadership positions at several Universities in the United States. His first appointment was at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he served for 6 years. In 2010, he was recruited to the University of Illinois at Chicago as the Head of Neonatology and the Director of the Fellowship program in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine. Here, he developed a 4th year of advanced training in academic neonatology. In 2014, 4 years later, he was invited to join as Professor of Neonatology, Pamela and Leslie Muma Endowed Chair in Neonatal Research, Chief of Neonatology, and Assistant Dean for Medical Education at the University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida. In 2018, he was recruited to the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland as the Director of Neonatology, Vice-Chair (Integration) of Pediatrics, and the Josephine S. Sutland Professor of Newborn Medicine. He has been perceived as highly-skilled in neonatal clinical care, basic and translational research, epidemiology, and the larger newborn healthcare picture over the last 20 years. In 2021, after recovering from a serious life-threatening illness, he decided to dedicate 2 years to develop the Global Newborn Society and its journal, the newborn. With his commitment to newborn health, he dedicated 1 year at the Louisiana State University - Shreveport as the State of Louisiana has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the US. After completing these commitments to himself, he has now moved to New York (NY) to join the Boston Children's Physicians Group at the NY Medical College, Valhalla, NY to resume academic neonatology while maintaining the GNS and its international work. 

Maheshwari is recognized for his work in the mechanisms of inflammation in infants, particularly in the gastrointestinal tract. LinkedIn and Wikipedia (still maturing) pages carry important information.His recent work has been focused on macrophage biology and the involved genetic factors. In addition to more than 200 invited lectures, he has published more than 190 peer-reviewed articles, contributed more than 50 chapters in leading textbooks of neonatology, and authored 7 textbooks. The latest, the Principles of Neonatology was released in November 2023. 

He initiated an open-access journal, the newborn to represent the GNS and has worked for its official registration, infrastructure, and global acceptace. It has since been adopted as the official mouthpiece by 48 more organizations from all over the world. He serves on the editorial boards of numerous medical journals, and has participated in/led numerous scientific committees at the National Institutes of Health at the American Heart Association in the US; the College of Reviewers at the CIHR, Canada; and in the United Kingdom, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Hong Kong, China.

Maheshwari is a recognized advocate for the care of newborn infants. He firmly believes that the fetus and the newborn represent a continuum and hence there is a need to strengthen both maternal and infant care for good outcomes. He has represented the GNS and emphasized this belief on the National Public Radio and television channels (1, 2) in the US; and other modes of communication (3, 4, 5). He has also been active in public organizations such as the Rotary Club (Washington DC Metro-Bethesda, #7620) and Rotary International. He is particularly passionate for the care of infants with Down syndrome (Trisomy 21). To improve the care of critically-ill infants, he sought help from experts from all over the world and developed an international consortium, the LAYA (Looking At Your practices in Application), to develop and evaluate a 'bundled approach'. Prior to handing over the leadership of the journal newborn to our current editors, it grew to represent more than 45 organizations from all over the world.

Maheshwari is currently serving as a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Eminence at the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India; Vice-President (honorary), Neonatology-Certified, Brooksville, TX, USA, and a Consulting Physician (honorary), St. Bernards Healthcare, Jonesboro, AR, USA to promote clinical quality-improvement work in the groups. He is a Board Member of the PreemieWorld Foundation, Springfield, VA, USA, the Mongolian Association of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Neonatology, UlaanBaatar, Mongolia, and the group of Pioneers - looking for sustainable ways to reduce infant mortality. He is an Advisor to the Bangladesh Neonatal Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh, the Autism Care Network Foundation, and the GNS Infant Nutrition Education Program. He is also a member of the Clinical and Scientific Advisory Board, International Prader-Willi Syndrome Organization. He is a Co-founder of the Skylar Institute for Black Lives. Finally, he is an enthusiastic member of the Rotary Club (its Metro-Bethesda branch at Washington DC).

©2020年，全球新生兒學會，“每個嬰兒都很重要”

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