Mark A. Underwood MD, MAS

Dr. Underwood received his medical training at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas followed by pediatric residency training at UCLA. After 12 years as a pediatrician in Great Falls MT, he and his family went to New Zealand for a year where he provided pediatric care in underserved areas and consultations at the medical school in Hamilton. Upon returning to the U.S. he completed a three-year fellowship in neonatology (the care of premature and sick newborn babies) at UC Davis School of Medicine. He joined the faculty at UC Davis in 2006 and became the chief of the division of neonatology in 2014.

His research focuses predominantly on a devastating disease that is common in premature infants, necrotizing enterocolitis. He conducts cohort studies and clinical trials of probiotic bifidobacteria and prebiotic oligosaccharides in premature and term infants, infants with congenital heart disease, and infants with gastroschisis and basic and translational studies of human milk composition, post-natal growth restriction and necrotizing enterocolitis. His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Children’s Miracle Network, the Clinical Translational Science Center at UC Davis, and Evolve Bioscience.