About the Artist

Creativity has been a constant for Wesley Hannah throughout her life. Writing has always been one outlet, visual art another. “Even in my school days,” she says, “I used to sketch small cartoons in my textbooks, in the margins.” As a self-taught artist, Hannah explores different mediums—pencil, paint, pastels—as a way to center herself among the chaos of the everyday. She believes we are small pieces of a larger puzzle orchestrated by the Grand Weaver, and the picture continues to improve as new pieces come together.

Hannah practiced dentistry before earning a postgraduate degree in epidemiology and public health from Christian Medical College Vellore in Tamil Nadu, India. She started her research career with a focus on noncommunicable diseases, briefly working on cardiovascular diseases and hypertension.

In 2017, as a new mother just back from her maternity break, Hannah took up a research position with the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF) in Chennai and helped implement a study developing a composite risk score to predict gestational diabetes mellitus in early pregnancy.

“This nascent field of research, I realized, would actually benefit two lives. That kept ringing in my head,” she says. “If you could intervene, it would help not only the mother, but the offspring in her womb as well.”

She recently earned her doctorate from Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, under the guidance of Dr. V. Mohan and Dr. R.M. Anjana at MDRF. Her thesis was on the epidemiology of early pregnancy gestational diabetes mellitus in south India. While at Deakin, she was involved in implementing the Treatment of Booking Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (TOBOGM) trial.

On the Cover: An Embodiment of Motherhood

While Hannah’s work typically portrays landscapes, for the latest issue of Diabetes Care, she drew inspiration from her own experiences as a mother.

“Pregnancy is a bit of a potpourri,” she says. “It’s a blessing, but at times can be difficult to handle as well.”

After first attempting the piece as a sketch, Hannah decided to use oil pastels instead—a medium she recently perfected. In the melding of these various shades of blue, Hannah illustrates the complexities of pregnancy.

“The blues are a depiction of the changes that women undergo,” she says. “Some shades are bright and happy, some are dull and musky. Women move through an entire spectrum before they actually get to hold the baby.

“Despite these hues of blue, she baptizes herself as a mother. There is a bond of love which is represented by how she embraces the baby in her womb,” she adds. “It is the baby who makes these blues a thing of uncomplicated beauty. This bond will only grow stronger and bloom brighter in the years to come.”

She wishes to dedicate this artwork to the pregnant women who participated in the TOBOGM trial and contributed to the betterment of evidence in the field of early gestational diabetes mellitus.

Wesley Hannah, BDS, MPH, PhD

Wesley Hannah, BDS, MPH, PhD

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