Department

Environmental and Occupational Health

Education

• University of Alabama, Birmingham, Ph.D., 2018

• Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Israel, M.A., 2010

• University of Florida, B.S., 2006

Background

• UAB School of Health Professions Dean's Leadership Award, 2018
• Recipient of the Howerde E. Sauberlich Award for Excellence in Nutrition Science Research, 2017
• Recipient of the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Outstanding Woman Award, 2016
• Recipient of the University of Alabama at Birmingham's President's Diversity Award, 2015
• NIA Predoctoral Diversity Supplement: "Sex hormones and arthritis in a long-lived animal model."
• Eppley Foundation for Research Grant: "Body composition and inflammation in overweight and obese cycling and non-cycling zoo African elephants."
• Smithsonian Institution's Scholarly Award for Science Grant: "Novel assessments of body composition and relation to metabolic status and fat stores in Asian elephants."

Scholarly Interest

I am interested in how ecological factors influence human and elephant physiology and how these interactions relate to health and aging over spatial and temporal scales. I seek to clarify the importance of anthropogenic disturbances (e.g., habitat conversion, pollution) on human and elephant neuroendocrinology, while also leveraging the elephant to further our understanding of the biology of aging. Specifically, I am using orphaned elephants to investigate how extreme stressors influence the pace of aging.

Selected Publications

Articles

Chusyd DE, Brown JL, Hambly C, Johnson MS, Morfeld KA, Patki A, Speakman JR, Allison DB, Nagy TR. 2018. Adiposity and reproductive cycling status in zoo African elephants. Obesity. 26: 103-110.

Chusyd DE, Wang D, Huffman DM, Nagy TR. 2016. Relationships between Rodent White Adipose Fat Pads and Human White Adipose Fat Depots. Front Nutr. 3:10.

Chusyd DE, Brown JL, Golzarri-Arroyo L, Dickinson SL, Johnson MS, Allison DB, Nagy TR. 2019. Fat mass compared to four body condition scoring systems in the Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). Zoo Biology. 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1002/zoo.21508.

Chusyd DE, Nagy TR, Golzarri-Arroyo L, Dickinson SL, Hambly C, Speakman JR, Johnson MS, Allison DB, Brown JL. 2021. Adiposity, reproductive cycling status, and activity levels in zoo Asian elephants (Elephas maximus).

Chusyd DE, Ackermans NL, Austad SN, Hof PR, Mielke MM, Sherwood CC, Allison DB. Aging: What we can learn from elephants. 2021. Front. Aging. 2:726714