Role: Epidemiology, Prenatal Exposures, Epigenetics.

Dr. Michele La Merrill is a shared faculty member of Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a member of UCD’s Comprehensive Cancer-, Environmental Health-, and Genome- Centers. She brings nearly a decade of expertise in perinatal epidemiology. Dr. La Merrill has led study design, laboratory methods, data cleaning, statistical analyses and interpretation, and research dissemination as the PI of NIH and CalEPA grants. Her research on the effects of maternal risk factors on birth and adult outcomes has examined the interactions of risk factors on offspring health, including demonstrating synergy between maternal adiposity and prenatal smoking on birth weights. She will apply complex data analyses skills to better understand how disparities synergize other perinatal risk factors to alter our understanding of how ‘traditional’ risk factors operate.