Dr. Angela Leung is a reproductive endocrinologist who helps men, women and couples who want to have a baby, preserve their fertility, or just take care of a reproductive health issue. Her focus, besides helping her patients achieve success, is developing a close relationship with them so they feel safe showing vulnerability, confident asking questions and comfortable investing in their fertility journey.

“My goal is to develop a personal relationship with every one of my patents,” Dr. Leung said. “To know small things about them, like what they do for work or some detail about their family. I want them to be comfortable asking me questions, because if you don’t feel connected with your doctor, or feel judged for asking questions, you won’t inquire about the things that matter to you, and that has an impact.”

Attracted to the east coast as a young woman, Dr. Leung moved from the Midwest to Princeton, New Jersey to pursue her undergraduate degree at Princeton University, where she studied ecology and evolutionary biology, and along with her degree earned a minor in neuroscience. She then headed back to Indiana for medical school, earning her MD at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. It was there that she began to narrow her medical path. At first, the dexterous Dr. Leung (she plays piano and violin) thought she might want to focus on surgery, but as soon as she got a taste of obstetrics and gynecology, she was hooked.

“My OB/GYN rotation in medical school was the best experience,” Dr. Leung said. “I really enjoyed the relationships I built with patients.”

Following residency, Dr. Leung strayed in the Boston area to complete her REI fellowship – another three years of training focused specifically on infertility – at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School and Boston IVF.

Board-certified in OB/GYN, Dr. Leung has conducted numerous research studies in the field of infertility. She has used single cell sequencing to compare the sperm of fertile and infertile. She’s found that prior exposure to hormone therapy in trans men had no effect on the number of eggs retrieved during IVF (their counts were comparable to the egg counts of cis women). And she’s studied the question of how many eggs are necessary to achieve multiple live births with one IVF cycle (it’s greater than 15). In addition, she’s investigated dozens more topics in translational research whose outcomes matter to patients.

Dr. Leung’s professional expertise includes egg freezing, with a focus on helping patients understand the process – and their chances of success – better. In 2021, Dr. Leung added an important piece of egg freezing research to the existing scientific literature that addresses the likelihood of achieving a live birth with frozen eggs. Dr. Leung looked at real outcomes of people, aged 34 to 42, who came to Boston IVF to freeze their eggs for elective purposes and then came back later to use those eggs to achieve a pregnancy. While about 1/3 of the patients were successful, Dr. Leung cautioned that a woman’s chance of success with previously frozen eggs depends on her age and the number of eggs frozen. Dr. Leung is committed to raising the bar on conversations around egg freezing so women are fully educated on the process and who may benefit.

Clinical Assistant Professor, Division of Reproductive Endocrinology, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

Board-certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology

American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology Fellow

American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) Member

Pacific Coast Reproductive Society Member

$10,000 New England Fertility Society Ferring REI Research Grant, 2019

Merit Excellence in Fellowship Research Scholarship to attend the 66^th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Pacific Coast Reproductive Society (PCRS), Indian Wells, CA, 2018