The seed for PreeMe+You began when Dr. Yaya Ren, a medical and cultural anthropologist and Dr. Bree Andrews, a professor of pediatrics and neonatologist, came together over many cups of cafeteria coffee to share stories about the inspired tenacity of families who juggle every day life with the demands of caring for their preemies.
Bree and Yaya are continually inspired by the love, creativity, and humor of the many families they meet. At the same time, they are too often disheartened by how confusing and overwhelming a hospital experience can be for families. And by the inequitable access to health infrastructure and information, developmental interventions, and social-emotional support for preemies and their parents.
As parents, Bree and Yaya are no strangers to the ongoing journeys of parenting. Yet, their own parenting journeys pale in comparison to the NICU journeys of preemie families. PreeMe+You is their way of giving back. Bringing together Bree’s NICU clinical expertise and outcomes research with Yaya’s anthropological findings on NICU medical communication and interactions, PreeMe+You is their way of building empowerment bridges for neonatal health and communication gaps for all families.
Our Vision
NICU health journeys are overwhelming, complex and emotional. PreeMe+You’s holistic eco-system of communication and interaction care tools are created from primary research and expertise in neonatal medicine and the science of human interaction and communication.
Meet Our Team
Yaya Ren
Founder & Chief Anthropologist
Dr. Ren is a medical and cultural anthropologist. She is passionate about bringing the science of human interactions to create mobile technology solutions that improve quality of life and health outcomes for preemies and their families. She has conducted extensive field work capturing the social-emotional and health disparity journeys of NICU families in the U.S and Taiwan, focusing on bridging communication gaps between medical teams and families. PreeMe+You combines her industry experience bridging online-offline social interactions with her social science expertise in NICU medicine and epidemiology.
Dr. Bree Andrews
Medical Advisor
Bree Andrews, MD/MPH is a neonatologist practicing at a large urban university hospital who wants parents and their baby(ies) to have the best experiences in the NICU and beyond. She is leading a research initiative to improve parenting quality of life in the NICU by creating high-quality opportunities for parenting engagement. She also nurtures families once they go home in a regionally recognized follow-up clinic for medically complex patients. Bree joined PMY as the medical expert on NICU practice and care.
Dr. Marin Arnolds
Medical Advisor
Marin Arnolds is a neonatologist and clinical ethicist at NorthShore University HealthSystem in Chicago, IL. Her research focuses on the experience of parenting in the neonatal intensive care unit and also improving communication between physicians and parents before, during and after their infant’s NICU admission. She is also a mother of two children, and is inspired by each baby and family’s strength during their NICU admission. Dr. Arnolds is passionate about improving quality of life for preemies and their families, and draws on her own experience as a mother in the NICU to to her daughter (born 9 weeks early) to support the families under her care.
Nicole Campbell
Partnerships
Nicole Campbell focuses on developing partnerships and business opportunities at Preeme+You. She draws from her decade of Wall Street experience across investment banking and business development at a private equity firm and hedge fund to help execute Preeme+You’s vision of weaving together empathic care and digital health.
Dr. Rosemary White-Traut
Advisor
Dr. White-Traut, is a renowned expert in premature and full term infant behaviors. Through her NIH funded research, Dr. White-Traut has developed a behavioral intervention for premature and full term infants and their parents to help support infant behavioral organization, oral feeding, growth, and development while engaging them with their parents. She is director of Nursing Research at Children’s Wisconsin, Professor Emerita at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, Rush University, and the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. White-Traut has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, the Harris Foundation and other agencies reaching a funding level of over 20 million dollars. She is excited to work with PreeMe to create an ecosystem of nurture technology that helps babies and parents grow and thrive together.
Jason Stewart
Sr. Product Designer
Jason Stewart is a Sr. UI/UX designer and technology consultant, collaborating with clients worldwide to bring their big ideas to market, build momentum and scale. His experience includes the launch of advanced web applications focused on healthcare IT and management, medical technology, and relationship marketing for rare disorder therapies. Jason joined PreeMe+You in 2015 as the Sr. Product Designer.
