Yeyi Zhu, PhD

Yeyi Zhu, PhD, is a Research Scientist III at Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research and Associate Adjunct Professor at Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco. She received her bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from Fudan University, Shanghai, China, and master’s degree in Statistics and PhD in Nutritional Epidemiology from The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Zhu completed her postdoctoral training with an intramural research training award at Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH.

In 2016, Dr. Zhu joined the Division of Research to expand the scale and generalizability of her work to real-world health care settings serving over 4 million members. Dr. Zhu’s research interests are at the interface of disease etiology and prevention strategies in the arena of women’s and children’s health across the lifespan. She has conducted etiological investigations to identify pre-diagnostic markers for gestational diabetes and risk factors for its progression to type 2 diabetes, as well as the respective underlying pathophysiological mechanisms. She has also investigated the impact of high-dimensional in-utero air pollution exposures (i.e., criteria air pollutants and air toxics) on adverse pregnancy and birth outcomes. Furthermore, she applies a life course approach to examine the developmental origins of cardiometabolic impairments of offspring exposed to nonoptimal intrauterine environment by integrating ‘omics technologies, high-dimensional electronic health records, and “big data” analytics tools. Her research aims to inform upstream preventive strategies to interrupt the vicious intergenerational cycle of obesity and diabetes and its related comorbidities across the lifespan. Dr. Zhu’s research is sponsored by grants from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and institutional funding.

Current Positions

• Research Scientist III, Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente Northern California
• Associate Adjunct Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco

Section Affiliations

• Women’s and Children’s Health

Primary Research Interests

• Developmental origins of metabolic impairments
• Gestational diabetes and type 2 diabetes
• Fetal growth and childhood obesity
• Nutrition in critical windows of development
• Prenatal exposure to environmental hazards

Related Websites

• My NCBI Bibliography
• UCSF Profile

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