Dr. Porrett was born in Port Huron Michigan and grew up in a farming community outside the suburbs of Detroit. She attended Northwestern University where she obtained a B.A. in French and then her M.D. at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Porrett subsequently completed a PhD in immunology as well as her general surgical residency and transplant surgery fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. As an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Porrett started the third uterus transplant program in the United States in conjunction with colleagues in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

In 2020, Dr. Porrett joined the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) as the Director for Clinical & Translational Research for the Comprehensive Transplant Institute. She is the inaugural director for vascularized composite allotransplantation (VCA) for the UAB CTI and has been named the Vera Hauptfeld-Dolejsek Endowed Professor in Transplant Immunology. At UAB, Dr. Porrett began the fourth uterus transplant program in the United States and is recognized as a national and international leader in the field of uterus transplantation. She currently serves as the secretary of the International Society of Uterus Transplantation (ISUTx), a section of The Transplantation Society. Dr. Porrett also serves on the VCA Committee for the Organ Procurement & Transplantation Network (OPTN/UNOS).

Dr. Porrett has diverse intellectual interests and expertise. Her NIH-funded immunology laboratory studies maternal immune cell fate and function during pregnancy in both human and animal models. These studies aim to improve pregnancy outcomes in transplant recipients and have focused on multiple immune subsets including T cells, B cells, NK cells, ILCs and macrophages. Recently, Dr. Porrett expanded her portfolio to include xenotransplantation and has published the world’s first experience of a clinical-grade, gene-edited porcine kidney transplant into a human being.