Maria Bleil PhD

Maria Bleil, Ph.D. is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Child Nursing. Dr. Bleil’s research takes a life course perspective in studying how individual- and environmental-level factors affect the timing and course of major reproductive events such as puberty and menopause as well as how such events shape trajectories of risk for chronic disease development, especially related to cardio-metabolic disease. This work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Brain and Behavior Research Foundation. Currently, Dr. Bleil is the principal investigator of two NIH-funded grants. The first grant is testing a life course model in which pubertal timing/tempo is hypothesized to play a mechanistic role in linking early life adversity and adulthood health. The second grant is examining environmental risk factors for accelerated reproductive aging, leading to earlier onset menopause. It is anticipated that Dr. Bleil’s work focusing on women’s reproductive health will have strong implications for interventions targeting children and young women to more effectively prevent/manage cardio-metabolic disease risk over the life course.

Education

• BA, SUNY Buffalo,
• MS, PhD, University of Pittsburgh,

What do you love about the UW School of Nursing?

I am so grateful for the opportunity to conduct my research in the UW School of Nursing, an environment that supports rigorous and high quality research among a strong and interdisciplinary group of faculty researchers motivated by the common desire to improve the health and well-being of all people.

Department

Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing

Research Areas

• Health Equity
• Lifespan Health