Maritza Dowling, PhD, MS, is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing at the George Washington University (GWU) in Washington, DC. She also holds an appointment in the department of Epidemiology, Milken Institute School of Public Health. She is the Associate Director of Research at the Center for Aging, Health, and Humanities. Her academic background is in biostatistics, measurement, and advanced latent variable modeling. She completed her PhD and post-doctoral training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to joining GWU, she co-directed the Biostatistics and Data Management Core at the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and led the Statistical Consultation Service Unit. Her research focuses on how biological, social, and life course risk factors influence cognitive decline and dementia-related brain changes in diverse older adult populations. Her methodological research has aimed at understanding the mechanisms underlying increased risk for neurological diseases, the neural substrates of cognitive processes, and the heterogeneity of changes differentiating normal from pathological aging. Her recent research has focused on measurement issues in the longitudinal assessment of health constructs and cognitive function and the optimization of outcomes measures for early diagnosis and detection of disease progression.
Currently, she is the Co-Principal Investigator of the “Enhancing Measurement and Characterization of Roles and Experiences of Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Caregivers of Persons living with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias”, a NIA-funded R01 to develop robust measures of experiences, roles and dynamics for SGM caregivers of persons living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). She is also the Co-Investigator and lead statistician for a NIA-funded R24 to develop and implement strategies to increase inclusion of diverse populations in research. The goal of the study is to engage, motivate, and recruit 1,000+ SGM people living with ADRD and SGM caregivers of people living with ADRD to participate in a research registry. Dr. Dowling’s work has resulted in over 90 journal publications and peer-reviewed conference papers
The George Washington University