OUR PEOPLE
Cynthia Harper, PhD
Professor
School of Medicine
550 16th Street, #001
San Francisco, CA 94158
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Education and Training
Middlebury College,Middlebury, VT, BA - 06/1984 Political Science
Middlebury College,Madrid, Spain, MA - 06/1985 Spanish
Columbia University,New York, MY, MIA - 06/1987 International and Public Affairs
Princeton University,Princeton, NJ, PhD - 06/1996 Demography and Health Policy
University of Pennsylvania,Philadelphia, PA, Post-doctoral Fellowship - 08/1998 Population Studies
Awards and Honors
Ford Foundation Human Rights Fellowship, Columbia University, 1986
National Institutes of Health Traineeship in Demography, NIH/NICHD, Princeton University, 1992
Center of Domestic and Comparative Policy Studies Fellow, Princeton University, 1993
Charles F. Westoff Dissertation Prize in Demography, Princeton University, 1996
Roy M. Pitkin Award (Co-author), American College of Obstretricians and Gynecologists, 2000
Roy M. Pitkin Award (First author), American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2005
Nominated for Postdoctoral Scholar's Association Outstanding Mentor Award, UCSF, 2006
Nominated for Academic Senate Distinction in Mentoring Award, UCSF, 2011
Darroch Award for Excellence in Sexual and Reproductive Health Research, Guttmacher Institute, 2013
Top 4 Oral Abstracts (Senior author), Society of Family Planning, 2014
Best Translational Research (Senior author), Society of Family Planning, 2015
Award for the Population, Reproductive, and Sexual Health Section posters (Senior Author), American Public Health Association, 2016
Award for Population, Reproductive and Sexual Health posters (Senior author), American Public Health Association, 2016
Award for Outstanding Continuing Education Outcomes Assessment, Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 2016
Editor's Choice article, Senior Author, Women's Health Issues, 2021
Award for Best Research Poster (Senior Author), American College Health Association, 2021
Outstanding Research Mentorship, UCSF Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences, 2022
Outstanding Research Mentorship, UCSF Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, 2023
Daniel R. Mishell Jr Outstanding Paper Award, Co-author, Society of Family Planning, 2023
Award for Best Clinical Abstract, Sr author, Society of Urodynamics, Female Pelvic Medicine & Urogenital Reconstruction, 2024
Overview
Cynthia C. Harper, PhD, is a Professor in Residence in the UCSF Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Interim Vice Chair for Research. She leads the UCSF-Kaiser Permanente Division of Research BIRCWH (Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health) K12 scholar training program. This NIH-funded program has trained dozens of nationally prominent researchers who have advanced women's health since its inception in 2000.
Dr. Harper is the Director of the Beyond the Pill Program at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. Her program aims to increase contraceptive access and agency in the United States through high-impact interventions tested in randomized trials. Her program has a proven track record of expanding contraceptive access, including in restrictive reproductive policy states. Working together with community partners, the program has adapted and scaled a clinic training intervention through implementation science to over 10 million contraceptive patients annually across the U.S.. Dr. Harper's team recently completed a randomized study in 2025, REACH Youth, designed to strengthen and mobilize youth-friendly contraceptive care in whole communities, bolstering weakened public health infrastructure and connecting youth to a range of contraceptive options, including directly at pharmacies. The intervention had 97% acceptability among youth and was equally effective in increasing youth contraception in Texas, a highly restrictive state, as in California. Next steps are to scale the intervention to other states with faltering access to contraception.
Dr. Harper's team also strengthens youth-friendly contraceptive services by developing, testing, and widely disseminating contraceptive education to combat scientific misinformation. Her program receives 200,000 requests each year for their educational resources, available in English and Spanish. These visual educational tools have proven effective for adolescents and young adults from a wide range of communities in increasing their awareness of contraceptive options and how to access them. Medically trusted information that young people will pay attention to is an important commodity, with the prevalence of social media. Her team actively collaborates with their Youth Advisory Board on initiatives for young people.
Dr. Harper is working to advance contraception at all access points to complement in-person clinic care, including via telemedicine, directly at the pharmacy and online. With a team at UCSF Bixby, she conducted a series of studies over many years and policy contexts that helped to transform emergency contraception from a little known regimen of cut up packets of pills to a product widely available over the counter to everyone. The research informed judicial and FDA decisions to ultimately move emergency contraception over-the-counter in the U.S. It also had a wide impact on policy and regulatory decisions in other countries where people can now access emergency contraception.
Dr. Harper is the Director of the Beyond the Pill Program at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. Her program aims to increase contraceptive access and agency in the United States through high-impact interventions tested in randomized trials. Her program has a proven track record of expanding contraceptive access, including in restrictive reproductive policy states. Working together with community partners, the program has adapted and scaled a clinic training intervention through implementation science to over 10 million contraceptive patients annually across the U.S.. Dr. Harper's team recently completed a randomized study in 2025, REACH Youth, designed to strengthen and mobilize youth-friendly contraceptive care in whole communities, bolstering weakened public health infrastructure and connecting youth to a range of contraceptive options, including directly at pharmacies. The intervention had 97% acceptability among youth and was equally effective in increasing youth contraception in Texas, a highly restrictive state, as in California. Next steps are to scale the intervention to other states with faltering access to contraception.
Dr. Harper's team also strengthens youth-friendly contraceptive services by developing, testing, and widely disseminating contraceptive education to combat scientific misinformation. Her program receives 200,000 requests each year for their educational resources, available in English and Spanish. These visual educational tools have proven effective for adolescents and young adults from a wide range of communities in increasing their awareness of contraceptive options and how to access them. Medically trusted information that young people will pay attention to is an important commodity, with the prevalence of social media. Her team actively collaborates with their Youth Advisory Board on initiatives for young people.
Dr. Harper is working to advance contraception at all access points to complement in-person clinic care, including via telemedicine, directly at the pharmacy and online. With a team at UCSF Bixby, she conducted a series of studies over many years and policy contexts that helped to transform emergency contraception from a little known regimen of cut up packets of pills to a product widely available over the counter to everyone. The research informed judicial and FDA decisions to ultimately move emergency contraception over-the-counter in the U.S. It also had a wide impact on policy and regulatory decisions in other countries where people can now access emergency contraception.