Dr Kate Birchenall is a Consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist and subspecialist in maternal and fetal medicine and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Bristol. Her research interests are focused on improving our understanding of the mechanisms involved in human labour and prevention of preterm labour, and she has led on clinical and laboratory-based studies as well as working with larger cohort studies. She is currently Chief Investigator of the NIHR EME funded national RCT to investigate whether the medication Pravastatin reduces preterm birth in those identified as being at risk (https://bristol-trials-centre.bristol.ac.uk/details-of-studies/pioneer/). Other areas she is actively working on include data-linkage projects in the areas of covid and childhood cancers and their effect on fertility and pregnancy, and the effects of climate change on pregnancy. She lectures and supervises in the areas of maternal and fetal health and global maternal health for a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate courses.