Cinzori Awarded Prestigious NIH F31 Fellowship

September 3, 2025

EITS and Human Nutrition graduate student, Maria Cinzori, was recently selected to receive the NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award for Individual Predoctoral Fellows (F31). The prestigious fellowship will support Cinzori in enhancing her training in environmental epidemiology, clinical pregnancy health outcomes, and science communication related to the implications of chemical exposures in pregnancy. The purpose of the Kirschstein-NRSA program is to enable promising predoctoral students with potential to develop into productive, independent research scientists and to obtain mentored research training while conducting dissertation research. 

Cinzori is mentored by IIT-affiliated faculty member Dr. Rita Strakovsky in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. Cinzori's dissertation research primarily focuses on how exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals impacts maternal cardiometabolic health in pregnancy and postpartum. In her awarded project, "Exposure to Metabolism Disrupting Chemicals: Implications for Maternal Health in Pregnancy," Cinzori will apply data from the nation-wide Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program to evaluate relationships between many common environmental chemicals and maternal risk of gestational diabetes and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (e.g. preeclampsia). She will then use complex causal statistical methods to evaluate whether a hypothetical intervention to decrease exposure to specific chemicals will improve maternal health outcomes. 

With this award, Cinzori hopes to further her training as a women’s health researcher and science communicator to work with the community to inform and influence policy decisions and improve women’s health across the lifespan.