Maria Bleil PhD she/her

Maria Bleil, PhD is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing. She is an affiliate faculty member in the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology and a recent recipient of the Charles and Gerda Spence Endowed Professorship. Dr. Bleil’s research examines early life adversity exposures and their influence on developmental pathways impacting life course health and health disparities. This work has strong implications for identifying areas of intervention to better manage risk in early life with a specific focus on the promotion of reproductive and cardiometabolic health. Currently, Dr. Bleil leads a 30-year follow-up study of the landmark NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) in which children and their families were studied intensively from birth to adolescence. The SECCYD follow-up study has located these now adult children (in their late 20’s) to collect extensive social, behavioral, and health data to enable testing of the effects of early life adversity exposures, and the mechanisms of these effects (e.g., pubertal timing), on trajectories of health and disease risk. Dr. Bleil also leads a follow-up study of a recently completed RCT to determine whether the benefits of an attachment-focused intervention, Promoting First Relationships®, may extend to the child’s cardiometabolic health. Finally, Dr. Bleil is a co-investigator on a follow-up study examining trajectories of reproductive aging and the impact of individual- and neighborhood-level exposures on the acceleration of reproductive aging, the timing of menopause, and post-menopausal health.

Education:

BA, SUNY Buffalo, 1998

MS, PhD, University of Pittsburgh, 2006

Internship, University of Illinois, Chicago, 2006

Post-doctoral Fellowship, University of California, San Francisco, 2009

What classes do you teach?

Application of Methods in the Conduct of Research NMETH 596

What do you love about the UW School of Nursing?

I am grateful for the opportunity to conduct my research in 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 lives of all people.

Department

Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing

Research Areas

• Health Equity
• Lifespan Health