Professor Zhang Cuilin

Appointment(s)

Chair Professor and Director, Global Centre for Asian Women’s Health, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore
Professor (adjunct) Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health
Professor (adjunct) Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Degree(s)

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Genetic & Nutritional Epidemiology, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
Ph.D., Epidemiology, University of Washington School of Public Health 
M.P.H., Epidemiology, University of Washington School of Public Health
M.D., Preventive Medicine, Beijing Medical University (currently Peking University Health Science Center)

Biography

Professor Zhang Cuilin is a Chair Professor on Women’s Health at the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, the founding Director of the Global Centre for Asian Women’s Health, and the Lead for Population Health Study programme of Asian Centre for Reproductive Longevity and Equity. Professor Zhang Cullin holds an Adjunct Professorship at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Before joining NUS, Professor Zhang Cullin was a Senior Investigator with tenure and an interim Chief of the Epidemiology Branch, Division of Population Health Research, NICHD, National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA. Professor Zhang Cullin served in the NIH Nutritional Research Task Force Writing Group for developing strategic plan on national nutritional research in the next 10 years (2021-2030) and was the NIH Intramural Subject Matter Expert of multiple themes: Nutrition Across the Lifespan, Foundational Nutrition Science; Approaches, Methods, and Tools for Dietary Intake Assessment.

Professor Zhang Cullin is a clinical epidemiologist whose work unites nutrition, biochemistry, genetics, clinical medicine, and public health. She is at the interface of disease aetiology and prevention strategies in the arena of women’s and children’s health over lifespan and across generations. As a distinguished Women’s Health Researcher, she is leading a multi-disciplinary research programme focusing on the improvement of women’s health and human potentials through diet and lifestyle modification, omics research, and early screening in general. One of the main focuses is on nutrition and lifestyle determinants, metabolic and genetic determinants, and health consequences of obesity, gestational diabetes and type 2 diabetes, and related comorbidities across the lifespan. Professor Zhang Cullin was the recipient of the Director Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Understanding of Etiology and Risk Factors of Gestational Diabetes, NICHD, NIH.

As a prominent researcher on diabetes based on a life course approach, Professor Zhang Cuilin has initiated and led multiple large cohort studies on nutrition, maternal and child health, diabetes and chronic diseases supported by NIH and National University of Singapore (> U.S.$80 million as PI or Co-PI). Along with extensive epidemiological and clinical data as well as related biospecimen collected, these studies were well-designed for investigating a broad range of health and disease outcomes and early life precursors of perinatal, paediatric, and adult diseases based on a multiomics platform. Professor Zhang Cullin has published more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, many of which are in high impact clinical journals, achieving an H index of 81, spearheading the significant contributions of her highly acclaimed innovative, global, multidisciplinary research group on nutrition, diabetes, obesity, and women’s and children’s health.

Professor Zhang Cullin currently serves in the Oversight Advisory Committee for Go Red for Women’s Health Research Network of the American Heart Association, the International Advisory Committee for Chinese National Birth Cohort, and the External Advisory Board for the Cohort of Mothers/Madres in Texas, USA (COMMIT). Prof. Zhang is an Associate Editor for Journals of Diabetes Care and American Journal of Epidemiology, and also serves as the Editor-in-Chief (international) for Maternal & Fetal Medicine (the first English journal on maternal and fetal medicine in China by Chinese Association of Medicine).

Selected Publications

Lifetime Duration of Breastfeeding and Cardiovascular Risk in Women With Type 2 Diabetes or a History of Gestational Diabetes: Findings From Two Large Prospective Cohorts

Birukov A, Guasch-Ferré M, Ley SH, Tobias DK, Wang F, Wittenbecher C, Yang J, Manson JAE, Chavarro JE, Hu FB, Zhang C.

Gestational Weight Change in a Diverse Pregnancy Cohort and Mortality over 50 Years: A Prospective Observational Cohort Study

Hinkle SN, Mumford SL, Grantz KL, Mendola P, Mills JL, Yeung EH, Pollack AZ, Grandi SM, Sundaram R, Qiao Y, Schisterman EF, Zhang C.

Pregnancy Complications and Long-Term Mortality in a Diverse Cohort

Hinkle SN, Schisterman EF, Liu D, Pollack AZ, Yeung EH, Mumford SL, Grantz KL, Qiao Y, Perkins NJ, Mills JL, Mendola P, Zhang C.

Plasma Amino Acids in Early Pregnancy and Midpregnancy and Their Interplay With Phospholipid Fatty Acids in Association With the Risk of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: Results From a Longitudinal Prospective Cohort

Yang J, Wu J, Tekola-Ayele F, Li LJ, Bremer AA, Lu R, Rahman ML, Weir NL, Pang WW, Chen Z, Tsai MY, Zhang C.

Modifiable risk factors and long term risk of type 2 diabetes among individuals with a history of gestational diabetes mellitus: prospective cohort study

Yang J, Qian F, Chavarro JE, Ley SH, Tobias DK, Yeung E, Hinkle SN, Bao W, Li M, Liu A, Mills JL, Sun Q, Willett WC, Hu FB, Zhang C.

Screening for Gestational Diabetes

Zhang C, Catalano P.

Lactation Duration and Long-term Risk for Incident Type 2 Diabetes in Women With a History of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

Ley SH, Chavarro JE, Li M, Bao W, Hinkle SN, Wander PL, Rich-Edwards J, Olsen S, Vaag A, Damm P, Grunnet LG, Mills JL, Hu FB, Zhang C.

Glycaemic status during pregnancy and longitudinal measures of fetal growth in a multi-racial US population: a prospective cohort study

Li M, Hinkle SN, Grantz KL, Kim S, Grewal J, Grobman WA, Skupski DW, Newman RB, Chien EK, Sciscione A, Zork N, Wing DA, Nageotte M, Tekola-Ayele F, Louis GMB, Albert PS, Zhang C.

Gestational Diabetes Mellitus and Renal Function: A Prospective Study With 9-to 16-Year Follow-up After Pregnancy

Rawal S, Olsen SF, Grunnet LG, Ma RC, Hinkle SN, Granström C, Wu J, Yeung E, Mills JL, Zhu Y, Bao W, Ley SH, Hu FB, Damm P, Vaag A, Tsai MY, Zhang C.

Association of History of Gestational Diabetes With Long-term Cardiovascular Disease Risk in a Large Prospective Cohort of US Women

Tobias DK, Stuart JJ, Li S, Chavarro J, Rimm EB, Rich-Edwards J, Hu FB, Manson JE, Zhang C.