Laura Chyu

Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Policy Research
PhD, Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, 2008
l-chyu@northwestern.edu
curriculum vitae

Laura Chyu is a postdoctoral fellow under the mentorship of IPR Faculty Fellows Thomas McDade and Emma Adam. Chyu studies how the dynamic interplay of sociodemographic, psychological, and biological factors affects physiological stress levels and health over the life course. In her dissertation, Chyu examined allostatic load, an index of cumulative biological risk, as a potential mechanism by which women’s interactions with the social environment over the life course impact physiological functioning and are translated into disease risk and health disparities. She investigated the sociodemographic correlates of allostatic load in a national sample of adult women, focusing on age patterns and racial/ethnic disparities. She also examined longitudinal patterns of allostatic load and its association with self-rated health among midlife women, who are undergoing the menopausal transition and are at a life stage when disease burden begins to manifest.

During her postdoctoral fellowship at IPR's Cells to Society (C2S): The Center on Social Disparities and Health, Chyu will be investigating social influences on stress biomarkers in early adulthood using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). This project integrates indicators of physiological functioning with socioenvironmental and psychosocial information to gain a better understanding of how social contexts “get under the skin” to affect the health of young adults.

Chyu received her BA in human biology in 1999 and her MA in anthropological sciences in 2001 from Stanford University. She earned her PhD in public health from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2008.