Dr. Digna R. Velez Edwards is a genetic epidemiologist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Velez Edwards received her Ph.D. in Human Genetics (2008) and Masters in Applied Statistics at Vanderbilt University (2007) with subsequent postdoctoral training in human genetics at the University of Miami (2008-2009). She has established a research program focused on genetic and environment risk factors associated with women's health and reproductive outcomes, including gynecologic cancers.

Since the start of her faculty appointment Dr. Velez Edwards has developed and coordinated a repository of biospecimens from participants in the Right from the Start pregnancy cohort to be used for genetic epidemiology studies examining reproductive health complications and risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes. She has several ongoing research projects utilizing this resource, as well as large clinical databases that link clinical information to DNA (BioVU). These studies focus on understanding the racial and/or ethnic disparities in genetic risk for several complex diseases including preterm birth, miscarriage, uterine fibroids, and pelvic organ prolapse. She has a funded R01 evaluating the genetic determinants of uterine fibroids in racially diverse populations and grant to identify novel rare variants associated with fibroids using an extreme phenotype design. She is also involved in the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium (OCAC) functioning as the site PI for the use of BioVU in the consortium. She also has active projects on endometrial cancer and endometriosis.