Cynthia Harper, PhD

Cynthia C. Harper, PhD, is a Professor in Residence in the UCSF Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Interim Vice Chair for Research. She leads the UCSF-Kaiser Permanente Division of Research BIRCWH (Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health) K12 scholar training program. This NIH-funded program has trained dozens of nationally prominent researchers who have advanced women's health since its inception in 2000.

Dr. Harper is the Director of the Beyond the Pill Program at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. Her program aims to increase contraceptive access and agency in the United States through high-impact interventions tested in randomized trials. Her program has a proven track record of expanding contraceptive access, including in restrictive reproductive policy states. Working together with community partners, the program has adapted and scaled a clinic training intervention through implementation science to over 10 million contraceptive patients annually across the U.S.. Dr. Harper's team recently completed a randomized study in 2025, REACH Youth, designed to strengthen and mobilize youth-friendly contraceptive care in whole communities, bolstering weakened public health infrastructure and connecting youth to a range of contraceptive options, including directly at pharmacies. The intervention had 97% acceptability among youth and was equally effective in increasing youth contraception in Texas, a highly restrictive state, as in California. Next steps are to scale the intervention to other states with faltering access to contraception.

Dr. Harper's team also strengthens youth-friendly contraceptive services by developing, testing, and widely disseminating contraceptive education to combat scientific misinformation. Her program receives 200,000 requests each year for their educational resources, available in English and Spanish. These visual educational tools have proven effective for adolescents and young adults from a wide range of communities in increasing their awareness of contraceptive options and how to access them. Medically trusted information that young people will pay attention to is an important commodity, with the prevalence of social media. Her team actively collaborates with their Youth Advisory Board on initiatives for young people.

Dr. Harper is working to advance contraception at all access points to complement in-person clinic care, including via telemedicine, directly at the pharmacy and online. With a team at UCSF Bixby, she conducted a series of studies over many years and policy contexts that helped to transform emergency contraception from a little known regimen of cut up packets of pills to a product widely available over the counter to everyone. The research informed judicial and FDA decisions to ultimately move emergency contraception over-the-counter in the U.S. It also had a wide impact on policy and regulatory decisions in other countries where people can now access emergency contraception.