Research groups
Colleges
Sahana Narayan
MS, MSPH
DPhil Student
- Interests: Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Intrapartum Fetal Monitoring, Clinical Bioethics, Informed Consent, Maternal Health Equity, Risk Communication and Assessment, Epistemic and Testimonial Injustice
Background
Sahana Narayan, MS, MSPH is a maternal health researcher and doctoral student in the Oxford Labour Monitoring Group, where she is pursuing a fully funded DPhil (PhD) in Women’s and Reproductive Health through the Oxford-Medical Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership (Oxford MRC-DTP). She is being supervised by Dr. Antoniya Georgieva and Dr. Angeliki Kerasidou.
Her research examines how clinicians interpret fetal monitoring data (cardiotocography) and intrapartum risk, and how these interpretations influence escalation, consent, and shared decision-making during labor. She aims to investigate how risk is communicated, negotiated, and acted upon under conditions of uncertainty, and how these processes shape maternal autonomy, substantiate a woman's positionality of systematic disbelief, and impact childbirth experiences. Using empirical bioethics and mixed-methods approaches, she endeavors to reduce adverse outcomes such as fetal hypoxia, stillbirth, postpartum hemorrhage, eclampsia, sepsis, and maternal mortality, and to develop ethically robust frameworks and tools that improve the quality and safety of maternity care.
Prior to her DPhil, Sahana completed a Master of Science in Media, Medicine, and Health at Harvard Medical School, where her thesis examined the implications of epistemic injustice and obstetric violence for maternal mortality in the United States, integrating narrative analysis with clinical ethics and communication practices. She also earned a Master of Science in Public Health and Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University, completing a thesis on the Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC) algorithm and how the use of race-based correction factors contribute to inequitable care and biased risk assessment. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Clinical Public Health from the University of California, San Diego, where her work centered on healthcare disparities and reproductive justice.
Recognizing that maternal-fetal outcomes arise from both clinical risk and structural inequities, Sahana’s work bridges maternal health, public health, and health services research. She aims to strengthen equity, elevate both patient and clinician voices, and improve the quality and ethics of reproductive care.
Outside of her DPhil, she serves as the Vice President of the St Cross College Student Representative Committee (SRC) and as one of the Student Representatives for the Oxford MRC-DTP Program.
Education
Master of Science (MS), Harvard Medical School (2023)
Master of Science in Public Health (MSPH), Columbia University (2022)
Bachelor of Science (Honors), University of California, San Diego (2021)
Websites
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NDWRH Feature - "DPhil Sahana Narayan receives 40 Under 40 Public Health Catalyst Award"
DPhil student Sahana Narayan has been named a recipient of the 40 Under 40 Public Health Catalyst Award, recognising emerging global leaders whose work is shaping a more just and equitable future. The honour highlights her outstanding research into improving maternal health and advancing equity in reproductive care.
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St. Cross College Feature
St Cross College is delighted to announce that DPhil student Sahana Narayan has been named a recipient of the 40 Under 40 Public Health Catalyst Award, recognising emerging global leaders whose work is shaping a more just and equitable future. The honour highlights her outstanding research into improving maternal health and advancing equity in reproductive care.
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40 Under 40 Public Health Catalyst Award Profile
Guided by the belief that public health must interrogate bias and build capacity, Sahana approaches women’s health with the recognition that maternal health disparities stem not only from biological risk but also from systemic inequities and the silencing of patient voices in reproductive care. Sahana is dedicated to forging a career as a physician-scientist at the nexus of maternal health, public health, and health services research, building a body of work that not only advances scientific discovery but also drives policy, strengthens equity across diverse health systems, and catalyzes community-centered innovation to transform how reproductive care is delivered, experienced, and valued worldwide.
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Research Spotlight Interview
In this edition of Research Spotlight, we sit down with St Cross DPhil student Sahana Narayan to discuss her research in Women’s and Reproductive Health at the University of Oxford. In this conversation, Sahana reflects on her research interests, life as a graduate student at Oxford, and the experiences that have shaped her work and perspective. Research Spotlight is a St Cross College interview series highlighting the diverse research, ideas and experiences of members of our graduate community.
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Signal Processing and Monitoring Talk 2026
Presented at the Signal Processing and Monitoring in Labour International Workshop (SPaM 2026), Oxford - "What the Machine Cannot Hear: Maternal Testimony, Clinical Technology, and the Limits of Intrapartum Risk Recognition." This talk examined maternal testimony as a distinct clinical signal in intrapartum care — arguing that what a woman says during labour constitutes a form of clinical evidence with identifiable epistemic properties, and that its systematic exclusion from clinical signal status is structurally rather than clinically produced.