Zeynep Madak Erdogan is an Associate Professor of Nutrition and the Director of the Women’s Health, Hormones, and Nutrition lab at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. She received her BS in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Bilkent University in 2002. After completing her Ph.D. and postdoctoral studies on Mechanisms of Estrogen Receptor Action, she joined Illinois’s Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition in 2014.
Madak Erdogan improves the quality of life for postmenopausal women and breast cancer survivors by understanding how diet and nutrition affect hormone action. Her lab uses multiscale modeling of omics data from patient samples, animal models, and cell lines to understand the molecular basis of metabolic regulation by nuclear receptors and therapy resistance.
In addition to mentoring undergraduate and graduate students, she has taught courses in Diet, Nutrition and Cancer, Nutrition and Women’s Health, and Toxicology. She has received several awards, including the National Institutes of Health Future Research Leader, the Women in Endocrinology Young Investigator Award, and the Mary Swartz Rose Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Nutrition. Madak Erdogan is also an active member of CRAG, the Cancer Research Advocacy Group, dedicated to bringing the cancer patient perspective to cancer research.