Dr. Nia Heard-Garris is a pediatrician and an instructor in the Department of Pediatrics at Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University; and also in the Division of Academic General Pediatrics and Mary Ann & J. Milburn Smith Child Health Research, Outreach, and Advocacy Center at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. She trained at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC for her pediatric residency. She received her doctor of medicine (MD) from Howard University College of Medicine and obtained her bachelor of science in biology at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.