Rebecca C. Thurston, PhD, FAMBR, FSBSM

Rebecca C. Thurston, PhD, FAMBR, FSBSM is Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Epidemiology; Pittsburgh Foundation Chair of Women’s Health and Dementia; Director of the Center for Women’s Biobehavioral Health Research; and Associate Dean for Women’s Health Research at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Thurston completed her undergraduate training at Stanford University, doctorate at Duke University, and fellowship at Harvard University. Dr. Thurston is an expert in menopause and women’s cardiovascular and brain health. She is a Principal Investigator of multiple groundbreaking studies of menopause, including the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation, the foundational study of menopause; the MsHeart/MsBrain studies, which employ wearable technologies and vascular and neuroimaging to understand women’s heart and brain health; and MenoBrain, the first large-scale study of cardiovascular and brain changes in perimenopause. Dr. Thurston is also committed to training the next generation of scholars; as such, she is Director of the NIH T32 Cardiovascular Behavioral Medicine Research Training Program. Further, Dr. Thurston is a practicing psychologist specializing in midlife women’s behavioral health care. Finally, as Associate Dean for Women’s Health Research, she is cultivating women’s health research school-wide. She has authored >240 publications. Her work is featured in media outlets including the New York Times, Forbes, and CNN. Dr. Thurston is Past President of The Menopause Society, a fellow of the Society for Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine and of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, and a recipient of the Chancellors Distinguished Research Award and International Menopause Society’s Henry Burger Award for global excellence in menopause science.