María Paulina Correa

I am Associate Professor of Social Epidemiology at the Institute of Nutrition & Food Technology, Universidad de Chile, where I have developed my entire academic career since moving back to Chile (2013). I have a Ph.D. in Social Science from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain), earned with highest honors, postdoc training in Public Health Epidemiology, and several years of research experience in chronic diseases epidemiology. Since moving back to Chile, I have gained extensive expertise in longitudinal data analysis and dynamic modeling and in applying analysis and research to policy development in public health. Since 2014, after being granted a research grant in the Chilean Advanced Human Capital Program (PAI) on mathematical modeling of cardiometabolic risk, I have been PI in four ANID funded grants (FONDECYT 1160240; FONDECYT 1210029; PAI 79140003; ACT210006), PI in one Universidad de Chile funded grant (URG-18/004), and co-I in several national projects (FONDECYT 11300090; FONDECYT 1210283; SOCHED-2020-06). Likewise, I have been involved in international research either as co-I in two projects funded by the National Institutes of Health, USA (2R01HL088530, 7R01HD014122) and as a lead investigator (MAPFRE#21-01). I have been an investigator to the Santiago Longitudinal Study since 2014, which happens to be the oldest epidemiological birth cohort in Chile. In the last five years, I have published >30 research papers related to this cohort, all of them related to the biopsychosocial determinants of obesity and cardiometabolic risk. Since late 2021, I lead a research group of excellence (ACT210006) on obesity-induced accelerated aging, which involves important research collaborations with the Geroscience Center for Brain Health and Metabolism (GERO, Chile) and the Buck Institute on Aging Research. This project focuses on the complex relations between obesity and aging, since early stages of life, and will combine classical epidemiology with advanced scientific techniques from cell and molecular biology.