Project Title: Investigating Relationships Between Naturalistic Light Exposure and Sleep
Position: Research Fellow in Medicine
Institution: Brigham and Women's Hospital
Funding NIH Institute/Center: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Project ID: K99HL166700
Originally from Massachusetts, Danielle Wallace, PhD, MPH, loves spending time in nature and developed an early interest in environmental health after reading Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. After working as a teacher for a few years, her curiosity for how environmental exposures shape health inspired her to pursue a master’s degree in public health at Emory University, with a focus on environmental health and maternal and child health. It was during graduate school that she fell in love with research and first considered it as a possible career path. Fortunate to work with two fantastic mentors, Carmen Marsit, PhD, and Machelle Pardue, PhD, she investigated the influences of light exposure and circadian disruption on health and development as a doctoral student. She has continued this work in environmental sleep and circadian epidemiology as a postdoctoral fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Wallace’s efforts to work towards diversity, equity, and inclusion in science include community outreach efforts, service on institutional committees, and mentorship of students and colleagues. Partly informed by her experiences living with epilepsy, she aims to cultivate communal belonging, to continue developing mentorship and teaching skills to support learners as they launch their careers, and to build effective coalitions to ensure that people with diverse thought, experiences, and backgrounds thrive in the academic research environment.