Natascha Merten, PhD, MS, assistant professor of population health sciences and medicine at UW–Madison, has been awarded the Vilas Early-Career Investigator Award for research and teaching excellence.
The Vilas Early-Career Investigator Award is given to faculty within the first ten years of their career and provides $25,000 to $100,000 in flexible funding to the recipient over three years. The awards are funded by the Trustees of the William F. Vilas Estate and through Research and Sponsored Programs. These awards are managed by the Office of the Provost.
Merten’s research is on brain aging, focusing on sensory and cognitive aging and dementia, aiming for a holistic approach to assessing aging processes. She is also the principal investigator of the Beaver Dam Offspring Study.
Merten received her masters in psychology and PhD in epidemiology from the University of Bonn in Germany, and her Postdoc in Epidemiology and Population Health from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
In 2023, Merten joined the Dementia Matters podcast to discuss her study focused on trends in cognitive function across generations and explain her research on the associations between sensory and motor functions and blood-based biomarkers for neurodegeneration and dementia.
Written by Alexia Spevacek
