Rebecca Thurston was named Pitt Medicine’s associate dean for women’s health

Rebecca C. Thurston has been named associate dean for women’s health research in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. An internationally recognized research trailblazer in menopause, Thurston serves the University as a Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Pittsburgh Foundation Professor of Women’s Health and Dementia and director of the Center for Women’s Biobehavioral Health Research.

Her work has long existed at the interface of multiple fields, including menopause, neuroscience, cardiology, endocrinology, psychiatry, psychology and epidemiology, and she is widely lauded as an exceptional leader of interdisciplinary research teams. In her role as associate dean, she will build on these strengths to help further connect the work of varied scientists to advance Pitt’s history at the forefront of women’s health research.

Thurston is a principal investigator of multiple large NIH-funded studies of the menopause transition, including leadership of the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation, which is entering its 30th year as one of the field’s foundational longitudinal studies of menopause. She is also PI of the MsHeart/MsBrain studies, which leverage wearable technologies and vascular and neuroimaging to elucidate the implications of menopausal symptoms for women’s heart and brain health.

In 2025, Thurston was awarded $7.5 million from the NIH for MenoBrain — a hallmark study of the brain and vascular changes of early perimenopause. In June, she was one of only 18 scientists worldwide selected for Wellcome Leap’s $50 million Cutting Alzheimer’s Risk through Endocrinology program as part of its global team.

Committed to training the next generation of scholars, Thurston directs the Cardiovascular Behavioral Medicine Research Training Program, which has trained leaders for more than 40 years. Further, she is a practicing clinical psychologist specializing in treating the behavioral health concerns of midlife women and is co-leading an American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on research and clinical priorities in mental health during menopause. She is also a past president of The Menopause Society and is active in crafting statements and guidelines for multiple societies including The Menopause Society and The American Heart Association.

Thurston has authored more than 250 publications, and her work is regularly featured in major news outlets including CNN, Forbes, The Washington Post and The New York Times. Her many accolades include the top menopause research award internationally, the Henry Burger Award from the International Menopause Society as well as the University’s Chancellor’s Senior Distinguished Research Award and UPMC’s Lisa Stanford Excellence in Leadership Award.

Thurston is a fellow of the Society for Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine and of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. She completed her undergraduate training at Stanford University, her doctorate at Duke University and her fellowship as a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at Harvard University.