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Dr. Parast received her M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she held the prestigious Medical Scientist Training Program fellowship. She did her residency training in Anatomic Pathology at Emory University Hospital, followed by fellowship training in Women's and Perinatal Pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, in affiliation with Harvard Medical School in Boston. Following her clinical training, she combined subspecialty sign-out with laboratory research at Brigham's Center for Excellence in Vascular Biology, initially as a Fellow and later as an Instructor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Parast established her independent research program at UC San Diego in 2008, where her work has been continuously funded through grants from both the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Clinical Expertise

As the Director of Perinatal Pathology Service at UC San Diego Health, Dr. Parast reviews placentas and other obstetric pathology, including gravid hysterectomy and gestational trophoblastic disease cases, and consults on perinatal autopsies.  She is available for consultation, either through the Anatomic Pathology Division (for second opinions), or directly (mparast@health.ucsd.edu) (for medicolegal consultation).

Find out more about specific projects in the lab here.