Gillian Einstein (HAA Class of '74)

Gillian Einstein is a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto, Adjunct Scientist at Women’s College Research Institute, and a member of both the Institute for Life Course & Aging and the Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto. She is also the Founder of the Collaborative Program in Women’s Health at the University of Toronto, The Wilfred and Joyce Posluns Chair of Women’s Brain Health and Aging, and Guest Professor of Neuroscience and Gender Medicine, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.

"While concentrating in Art History, I began wondering about how people see. To satisfy that curiosity, I began graduate work and postdoctoral study on the anatomy and physiology of the visual system focusing on the connections between the retina and the brain. Along the way, I realized that the pathways I was studying in animal models were some of the same pathways that are disrupted in Alzheimer disease. Thus began my research on the aging brain. When I moved to the University of Toronto and opened a new lab, I decided to focus on women's brain aging, was awarded the Wilfred and Joyce Posluns Chair in Women's Brain Health and Aging to study how the loss of ovarian hormones (estrogens and progesterones) leads to the earliest signs of Alzheimer disease (AD) and dementia in younger women. My lab (Einstein Lab of Cognitive Neuroscience, Gender, and Health) uses multiple methods to better understand the effects of women's early life events (like ovarian removal) that might increase their risk of AD. While we use brain imaging (a visual method) and neuropsychological testing, we also use arts-based methods to study what the experience of their memory is like for our participants. We had an art exhibit of these body maps at a conference I recently organized. One of the attendees asked me how I got the idea to combine art and science and I am sure it is because of my early concentration in Art History at Harvard."