Sheryl van der Poel, MD, PhD

Sheryl van der Poel, PhD, is Carrot's Chief Scientific Advisor, Global Operations. In her role, Dr. van der Poel is the dedicated point of contact for clinical advisory at Carrot and provides scientific and medical strategic contacts, advice, and suggested solutions for country operations outside of the U.S.

Dr. van der Poel is recognized as a global expert in reproductive health and brings extensive experience addressing fertility care and infertility-related scientific, ethical, and clinical issues to her work at Carrot. She is a prolific researcher and writer, publishing extensively on reproductive health topics and infertility in developing countries. Prior to joining Carrot, Dr. van der Poel spent 15 years leading reproductive health and infertility initiatives at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva where she served as Medical Officer and Scientist in the Reproductive Health and Research Department. Dr. van der Poel had spent 12 years in Singapore in academic positions at the National Medical Research Institute, a professorship at the National University Hospitals and the University of Singapore as well as SingHealth Medical. She held the position of Chief Medical/Scientific Officer during the start-up phase of the CordLife Group, Singapore. 

During her career, Dr. van der Poel has been an active leader and member of several committees and organizations. She serves as current Chair for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) Access to Care Special Interest Group; Affiliate Member, International Society for Obstetrics and Gynecology (FIGO), Research Liaison, Reproductive and Development Environmental Health Committee; and Honorary Member and Educational Committee Member, International Federation of Fertility Societies (IFFS). 

Dr. van der Poel continues to consult on several infertility initiatives globally with a concentration on lower resource settings as well as within all resource settings for low-and-middle-income countries, with an emphasis on affordable solutions for fertility care. She currently provides support for non-state actors in official relations to WHO, and participates in various global research and policy initiatives, as well as advising international organizations on fertility care and infertility-related topics.

Dr. van der Poel earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and her PhD and joint post-doctoral fellowship with the Department of Genetics, Development & Molecular Biology and Department of Oncology and Hematology at the University of Chicago where she had identified, sequenced and named a stem cell gene. She had additional clinical fellowship training in reproductive oncology, and a research fellowship in embryo and fetal development from the University of Tübingen, Max Planck Institute in Germany. Dr. van der Poel also earned certificates in ethics and human rights, and health and human rights, from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.