Karen D. Fairchild, MD

Karen Fairchild is an academic neonatologist. She received her BA in French Studies from Wellesley College and MD from Duke University School of Medicine. She completed her Pediatrics Residency at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and her Neonatology Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. 

Cardiorespiratory predictive monitoring is Dr. Fairchild’s primary area of research. Since 2004, she has worked with CAMA director Randall Moorman and John Kattwinkel, who served as PI’s for the HeRO randomized clinical trial, the largest RCT in VLBW infants. At UVA, Dr. Fairchild cares for infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and Intermediate Care Unit (ICU), where she also serves as co-PI with Dr. Kattwinkel for an RCT of ventilation during delayed cord clamping for extremely preterm infants. She is co-I with Dr. Moorman for the Pre-Vent: Premature Ventilatory Control project.

Early phases of research centered on studies in sepsis and host defense in neonates. Dr. Fairchild studied molecular and cellular aspects of innate and adaptive host defenses as a fellow at the biomedical research organization Pasteur Institute in Paris and two years of neonatology fellowship. Her research of in vitro effects of hypothermia on cytokine gene expression NF-kB activation led to further research expanding to in vivo models and serving on the Neonatal Resuscitation Program Steering Committee. Dr. Fairchild’s interest in heart rate characteristics abnormalities in the early stages of sepsis led to the development of a mouse model that showed that proinflammatory cytokines cause depressed HR variability and repetitive deceleration. 

Dr. Fairchild currently leads the University of Virginia Apnea and Predictive Monitoring Research Group, where her primary focus is studying apnea, periodic breathing, and hypoxemia in preterm infants. She has worked closely with and mentored CAMA neonatologist Brynne Sullivan for six years. Together, they have developed combined cardiorespiratory algorithms with the Columbia University NICU research team for early detection of sepsis and NEC in VLBW infants.