Assistant Dean for Sustainability 
Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology 
copleywoodsn@upmc.edu  

Dr. Woods is an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (UPMC) after working for the IHS in Navajo Nation, Arizona. She is currently the assistant dean of Healthcare Sustainability and specializes in gynecologic ultrasound. 

Her research involves environmental life cycle analysis of medical procedures, and she is a graduate of Harvard’s Climate Health Organizing Fellowship. She is the course director of the Pittsburgh SOM health care sustainability elective, and she is chair of Clinicians for Climate Action (C4CA): a 550+ member group with a mission to decarbonize health care. Fierce Healthcare named her a “2023 Women of Influence,” C4CA received an American Climate Leader award from ecoAmerica in 2024 and she was featured on NPR’s morning edition. 

Dr. Woods completed her undergraduate studies at Cornell University as a Cornell Tradition Scholar. She attended medical school at Temple University School of Medicine and completed ObGyn residency at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. 

1. Melnyk, AI, Woods N, Bradley M, Moalli P. The Utilization of Disposable Supplies in a Urogynecology Operating Room: Measuring Suburethral Sling Surgical Waste by Cost and Weight” Urogynecology 30(2): p. 132-137, February 2024.
2. Woods N, Melnyk AI, Moalli P. Waste Not Want Not: The Story of Surgical Trash. Current Opinion in Obstetrics and Gynecology.