Cristina Gildee

Cristina Gildee is a biological anthropologist whose research investigates how bone remodeling and aging are influenced by factors such as reproduction, mechanical loading, and aging. She earned her PhD in Biological Anthropology from the University of Washington in 2025. Her dissertation, Bone Functional Adaptation: Life History Constraints and Implications for Aging Research, examined how parity, habitual mechanical stress, and telomere length influence regional bone mineral density across the lifespan. Drawing on evolutionary theory, biomechanics, and cellular biology, her work interrogates the embodied costs of reproduction and the biological mechanisms driving skeletal aging. Her dissertation was supported by the NIH/NIA T32-funded Biological Mechanisms of Healthy Aging (BMHA) Training Program and the Jerome H. Debs II Endowed Fellowship in Orthopaedic Traumatology.

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Cristina is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Primate Evolutionary Biomechanics Laboratory (PEBL), where she contributes to projects on human locomotor evolution, finite element modeling, skeletal maintenance, and age-related health disparities. Her research leverages large-scale epidemiological datasets, such as NHANES, aiming to expand the demographic and phenotypic diversity represented in skeletal aging studies, to address persistent gaps in biomedical and anthropological research driven by homogenous sampling.

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A dedicated educator and mentor, Cristina teaches courses on evolutionary medicine and skeletal adaptation at the University of Washington and Green River College. She is also an advocate for public science communication. Since 2022, she has co-produced and co-hosted "The Sausage of Science," the official podcast of the Human Biology Association, where she amplifies the work of early-career and established researchers at the intersection of biology, culture, and epidemiology through interviews with scholars across various disciplines.