Marcia Stefanick, PhD

Marcia Stefanick, Ph.D, Professor of Medicine (Stanford Prevention Research Center, SPRC) and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Stefanick’s research, which has been widely disseminated at both a national and international level, focuses on chronic disease prevention (particularly, heart disease, breast cancer, osteoporosis, and more recently, dementia) in both women and men. Currently, her primary interests include the role of sex hormones and lifestyle, e.g. diet, exercise, and weight control, on health, sex/gender differences in human physiology and disease, menopause, and healthy aging. She directs several courses on these topics at Stanford University, where she plays major leadership roles in Stanford’s Women’s Health Program, the Cardiovascular Institute’s Women’s Heart Health Program, and Stanford Cancer Center’s Cancer Prevention and Control Program.

Dr. Stefanick obtained her B.A. in biology from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA in 1974, pursued her interest in hormone and sex difference research at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center, and obtained her PhD in Physiology at Stanford University, in 1982, with a primary focus on reproductive physiology and neuroendocrinology, and a secondary focus on exercise physiology. She then did post-doctoral training in Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, before joining the SPRC faculty.

Dr Stefanick is the Stanford Principal Investigator of the large multi-center Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), which has followed over 160,000 postmenopausal women across the U.S. for over a decade in trials focused on menopausal hormones, dietary changes and calcium and vitamin D supplementation, as well as the Women’s Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) trial, a diet trial of 3100 breast cancer survivors, the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures in Men (the MrOS study), assessing health issues in 6000 men, aged 65 and over, and the MrOS Sleep Study, and most recently, HERBA, evaluating the potential role of a Chinese herb for managing menopausal symptoms and sleep disruption.