Education & Training
- Ph.D.: Uppsala University, 2023
- M.D.: Drexel University, 2007
Major Awards
- The Eleanor S. Rubinow Service Award for Outstanding Dedication to The Care of Children or Women with Mental Illness, UNC Department of Psychiatry, 2018
- NARSAD Young Investigator Award, Invited presenter at their annual symposium, Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, 2016
Areas of Clinical Interest
Prior to joining Washington University, she was faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During her ten years at UNC, she was medical director for a psychiatric inpatient unit for pregnant and postpartum individuals, helped found and was medical director of a statewide perinatal mental health consultation service, and had an outpatient psychiatry practice specialized in working with individuals with high-risk pregnancies. She also has expertise in perinatal OCD and in mood disorders related to reproductive hormonal changes.
Research Interests
Dr. Kimmel’s research focuses on identifying biomarkers that can be utilized to direct treatments and in testing novel treatments that emerge from knowledge gained from research of the microbiome, the gut-brain axis, and reproductive psychiatry.
Recent Publications
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Investigating the Microbiome in Relation to Mental Distress Across Two Points During Pregnancy: Data From U.S. and Swedish Cohorts
Kimmel, M., Tong, B., Devall, A. E., Björvang, R. D., Schuppe-Koistinen, I., Engstrand, L., Fransson, E., Skalkidou, A. & Hugerth, L. W., May 2025, In: Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science. 5, 3, 100453.
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Psychometric properties of the postpartum thoughts and behaviors checklist
Rast, C. E., Dibbs, T., Pinciotti, C. M., Jagannathan, N., Abramowitz, J. S., Kimmel, M. C., Musci, R., Nestadt, G., Nestadt, P., Osborne, L. M., Samuels, J. & Storch, E. A., Apr 2025, In: Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders. 45, 100939.
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Psychometric evaluation of the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale in pregnant women
Rast, C. E., Musci, R., Abramowitz, J. S., Nestadt, G., Kimmel, M. C., Dibbs, T., Osborne, L. M., Samuels, J., Krasnow, J. & Storch, E. A., 2025, (Accepted/In press) In: Archives of Women’s Mental Health.
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Maternal Prenatal Stress and the Offspring Gut Microbiome: A Cross-Species Systematic Review
Graf, M. D., Murgueitio, N., Vogel, S. C., Hicks, L., Carlson, A. L., Propper, C. B. & Kimmel, M., Jan 2025, In: Developmental Psychobiology. 67, 1, e70005.
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Investigating heart rate variability measures during pregnancy as predictors of postpartum depression and anxiety: an exploratory study
Eriksson, A., Kimmel, M. C., Furmark, T., Wikman, A., Grueschow, M., Skalkidou, A., Frick, A. & Fransson, E., Dec 2024, In: Translational psychiatry. 14, 1, 203.