Dr. Melissa A. Parisi is chief of the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Parisi earned M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University, followed by pediatrics residency and fellowship training at the University of Washington. She joined NICHD in 2008, and currently oversees the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Centers program. She chairs the Down Syndrome Consortium, a public-private partnership to facilitate research collaborations. Through this Consortium, she led efforts to create DS-Connect®: The Down Syndrome Registry, an online database that connects families with research opportunities and resources. She also leads the INCLUDE (INvestigation of Co-occurring conditions across the Lifespan to Understand Down syndromE) Project, a trans-NIH initiative to address quality-of-life needs for those with Down syndrome. She has overseen the development of newborn screening research initiatives at NICHD and NIH, including the Newborn Sequencing In Genomic Medicine and Public Health (NSIGHT) program with NHGRI. She strives to advance basic, clinical, and translational research for individuals with developmental disabilities.