The CHR Study of Osteoporotic Fractures (SOF) Portland team, left to right: Erin LeBlanc, Sperry Robinson, Ann Macfarlane, Teresa Hillier (center), Jan Van Marter, Robin Daily, and Kim Vesco.
By Jill Pope, Senior Scientific Editor
Teresa Hillier Graham, MD, MS
In November 2024, KP CHR staff gathered for a center-wide meeting honoring the life and work of Teresa Anne Hillier Graham, MD, MS, a Distinguished Investigator at CHR and a beloved colleague who died in October 2023. Members of Hillier’s family, including her husband Hunter Graham, were in attendance, and many of her colleagues at the KP Center for Integrated Health Research (CIHR) in Hawaii attended virtually. Several of Hillier’s colleagues presented together, focusing on Hillier’s background and training, scientific achievements, mentorship, and impact.
Background and Training
Distinguished Investigator Greg Clarke, PhD, Hillier’s long-time colleague and her supervisor at the time of her passing, began by describing Hillier’s background. Hillier grew up in Portland; she received a BA in biology from Northwest Nazarene College in 1986 and an MD from Oregon Health & Sciences University in 1990. She completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Providence Medical Center in Portland, then an endocrinology fellowship at the University of Virginia (UVA), followed by a master’s in epidemiology from UVA.
Hillier came to CHR as a Senior Research Associate in 1998, joining the research teams of ongoing diabetes studies led by Greg Nichols, PhD, and Jonathan Brown, MD. In 1999 she was promoted to Investigator, with dual appointments at KP Northwest and KP Hawaii. Over her 25 years at CHR, Hillier rose to the rank of Distinguished Investigator.
Research Career and Mentorship
Hillier built and maintained a strong research portfolio, primarily in female reproductive health, diabetes, and gestational diabetes. While her career had many notable successes, her colleagues identified key highlights. In 2007, she led a paper, “Childhood Obesity and Metabolic Imprinting,”which demonstrated a link between gestational diabetes and childhood obesity and has been cited more than 900 times. In 2021, Hillier and her colleagues published the results of a trial that randomized screening methods for more than 23,000 pregnant patients, “A Pragmatic, Randomized Clinical Trial of Gestational Diabetes Screening,” in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Hillier was an important mentor, particularly to CHR Senior Investigators Erin LeBlanc, MD, MPH, and Kim Vesco, MD, MPH. Vesco, a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist, described working with Hillier on the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures (SOF) as “a life-changing first step to my career as an independent investigator.” LeBlanc, an endocrinologist who was a co-investigator on the SOF study, said Hillier was instrumental to LeBlanc establishing her own research career, explaining that shortly after she started at CHR, Hillier got her involved in writing papers examining hip fractures, weight, and dementia. Working with Hillier, LeBlanc led a paper that used data from nearly 10,000 women to show the risk of death nearly doubled for older women in the year following a hip fracture (JAMA Internal Medicine); the paper received considerable media attention.
In more recent years, Hiller became interested in music as a therapy for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Neon Brooks, PhD, an editor and research associate at CHR who worked closely with Hillier, explained that Hillier had experienced a TBI and found relief from her symptoms after listening to specific pieces of music. Hillier then designed and reported on a functional MRI (fMRI) case study that supported her subjective experience of the treatment’s benefits. The work has not yet been published, but Hillier’s colleagues are committed to disseminating the findings.
Working With Teresa
Jan Van Marter, MPA, and a former RN, shared stories about what it was like to work alongside Hillier as her longtime project manager. She recalled how Hillier prioritized regular lunch dates with her grandmother; how she kept a paper calendar long into the era of cell phones; and how she methodically navigated the challenges of moving to Paris for a year with her husband and two sons to take a fellowship at INSERM, the French National Institute of Health. Despite Hillier’s undeniable force, Van Marter spoke of her calm leadership, her unflappable nature, and her determination to break down and work through issues that others might see as barriers.
Caryn Oshiro, PhD, MS, RD, a Collaborative Investigator at CIHR who worked with Hillier on numerous research projects starting in 2007, talked about studies Hillier conducted with Hawaii research staff, including the Lifestyle, Culture, and Health Study, which ran from 2007 to 2022. She also spoke of Hillier’s support for her colleagues’ personal pursuits, sharing a photo of Hillier with Joan Dubanoski, PhD, MPH, at an exhibit of her photography. She described ways she and other CIHR staff had memorialized their friend and colleague, including by planting a Lei Kou tree in her honor. Since Teresa loved water activities on the west side of O’ahu, Oshiro dedicated a traditional “paddle out” on her surfboard to present flowers from a lei for Teresa to the Pacific Ocean.
Community Support
After the presentation, additional CHR and CIHR community members shared their memories of Teresa, providing support to one another in their shared loss. The event made clear the many ways Hillier was influential within the CHR community and beyond. Her research contributions moved science and patient care forward and strengthened the reputation of both CHR and CIHR. As a mentor, collaborator, and friend, she supported countless colleagues in their own career growth and personal lives. She will be greatly missed.