Biography

Nicole Gatto is a principal collaborative scientist at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI), where she predominantly works on the Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) Study, focusing on the epidemiology of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.

Nicole’s research aims to increase our understanding of chronic diseases including neurodegenerative disorders, cardiovascular disease, and cancers. She has studied a broad range of risk and preventive factors including environmental, occupational, lifestyle, physiological, and genetic factors. She has led several funded epidemiologic studies, effectively utilizing data from cross-sectional, case-control, cohort, and experimental studies and applying different analytical approaches in her research.

Nicole earned her Master of Public Health from the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA and her PhD in epidemiology from the Department of Preventive Medicine at University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. Subsequently, she completed a 3-year post-doctoral fellowship at UCLA in environmental neuroepidemiology as well as a 1-year internship in communicable disease control and prevention at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. She holds certifications in public health, SAS, geographical information science, clinical trials, and college teaching.

Nicole has affiliate faculty appointments at the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, University of Southern California, and University of California, Riverside. She is a member of several professional societies, including the Alzheimer’s Association and the American Public Health Association. She serves as a reviewer for prominent public health journals, including Environmental Health Perspectives, Journal of the Neurological Sciences, and Public Health Nutrition.

In 2014, Nicole was a recipient of the Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award, California’s highest environmental honor. In 2020, Nicole was named a Fulbright Scholar and, during 2021, she taught and conducted research at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. Nicole is also a three-time Fulbright Specialist completing research and teaching projects in the countries of Mongolia, Colombia, and Kazakhstan between 2018 and 2025.

Nicole is inspired by the work of Wangari Maathai, who founded the Green Belt movement in Kenya, and Alice Waters, who created the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, California.