Research scientist
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Danruo Zhong, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Her research centers on the developmental origins of health and disease (DoHAD). Specifically, she examines: 1) how early environmental insults—both in the prenatal period (e.g., maternal stress) and during the first 1,000 days of life (e.g., deprived care, maltreatment, poverty)—affect children’s development and health, including cardiometabolic risk; 2) how different developmental domains (e.g., “brain vs. body”) “trade-off” with each other under early stressful circumstances, and its influence on children’s growth and long-term health; 3) how parenting moderates the impacts of early life stress on children, and 4) how interventions foster resilience in mothers and children who have experienced psychosocial stress. Her research aims to facilitate early detection of health risks in children with histories of adversity and inform intervention strategies and policies for promoting child development. Dr. Zhong received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
