INHSU Announces Inaugural U.S. Fellowship Cohort Supporting Women Who Use Drugs

Meet the five inaugural U.S. Fellows below.

Alex White, Services Director, Texas Harm Reduction Alliance

Based in Austin, Texas, Alex works with the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance, delivering peer‑led harm reduction services for people who use drugs. Alex’s work prioritises women and LGBTQ+ people, including dedicated drop‑in spaces designed to reduce violence, increase autonomy and foster community care.

Alex’s practice is deeply informed by lived experience and a commitment to centring the leadership of people who actively use drugs. Through community‑based organising and innovative outreach, Alex is working to create safer, more affirming environments for women who use drugs in contexts where formal services are limited.

I want to place what we’re doing in a global context. Being exposed to people doing this work on an international level — specifically with women — completely broadens my scope and opens my world. It gives me new ideas and new realities to consider. 

Galya Walt, PhD Student, Brown University School of Public Health

Galya is a PhD researcher whose work focuses on pregnant and parenting women who use drugs, particularly those navigating residential treatment and child welfare systems. Her research highlights the profound gap between support and surveillance in perinatal care, and the lack of humane options for parents seeking help without fear of punishment.

Drawing on close partnerships with clinicians and peer workers, Galya’s work explores alternatives such as infant respite care and perinatal peer recovery support; approaches that value family unity, dignity and maternal wellbeing.

I’m excited to think critically about what the role of research is when we’re trying to improve services for women who use drugs, and to be open to that role looking really different than how I expected. I want to learn from researchers and people working in the field together, and adapt how I approach the rest of my time in grad school and my career after that.

Madeline McCrary, MD, Division of Infectious Diseases, Washington University 

Madeline is a physician specialising in infectious diseases and addiction medicine, with a research and implementation focus on hepatitis C treatment during pregnancy. Her work challenges long‑standing assumptions that treatment must be delayed, instead demonstrating how pregnancy can be a critical opportunity to engage women in care.

Working across hospital systems, including rural and low‑resource settings, Madeline has helped develop models that provide hepatitis C treatment at multiple touchpoints — during pregnancy, at delivery and postpartum — reducing missed opportunities and improving continuity of care for women who use drugs.

I was so excited to hear that I was selected for this program. My work has really been about pushing the envelope and asking, ‘Why aren’t we doing this?’, and chipping away at my little space in the world. Through this fellowship, I want to learn how to better structure and share work that seems effective, and how to do it in a more community-engaged way that actually makes sense to the people it affects.

Kathleen (Katie) Ward, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Columbia University

Katie is a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University’s NIH T32 Training Program on HIV and Substance Use in the Criminal Justice System. Katie’s work centres on trauma‑informed mental health care and HIV prevention among women who inject drugs. Her research amplifies women’s voices, examines the role of trauma and violence, and prioritises valid and reliable measures that accurately capture the experiences of women who inject drugs.

Through innovative interventions and close collaboration with community partners, Katie’s work seeks not only to improve individual outcomes but also to support the peer workers and practitioners delivering care in under‑resourced and emotionally demanding settings.

I’m really grateful to have been selected for this fellowship. As someone early in my research career, I want to continue doing this work and make connections with other people who are doing it too. I really think the best research is done in collaboration, and having a home base like this to share ideas and get feedback is so important to me.

Ilana Hull, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Dr Ilana Hull is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and a board‑certified family and addiction medicine physician whose work focuses on low‑barrier addiction care for pregnant and parenting individuals. She practices across inpatient and outpatient settings, providing integrated primary care and addiction treatment within hospital and perinatal services.

Her research explores innovative care delivery models that reduce barriers to treatment engagement, integrate harm reduction strategies into clinical settings, and improve outcomes for women navigating pregnancy, parenting and substance use. Dr Hull is also actively involved in medical education and addiction medicine fellowship training, supporting the next generation of clinicians.