Dr. Maloyan earned her Ph.D. in Physiology from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. She holds an Associate Professor position in the Knight Cardiovascular Institute at the Oregon Health and Science University where she and her research group investigate how maternal obesity affects placental function and predisposes the offspring to metabolic and cardiovascular diseases in adult life, a phenomenon of so-called developmental programming.   

More than 65% of women entering pregnancy in the US are overweight or obese. Maternal obesity increases the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes including malformations, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and stillbirth. Most importantly,  in utero exposure to maternal obesity causes changes in the offspring's body composition, and cardiovascular and metabolic function thereby predisposing the offspring to obesity, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in later life. 

Dr. Maloyan's research focuses on understanding the effect of maternal obesity on placental and fetal metabolism, including metabolic, immune,  physiological, and epigenetic dysregulations.  

The focus in our lab is on three major areas:

• The role of the placenta in the developmental programming of maternal obesity;
• Fetal immune, metabolic, respiratory, and epigenetic adaptations to obesogenic intrauterine environment;
• Role of autophagy in developmental programming caused by maternal obesity.

Yem Alharithi received his Bachelor's degree from  Northwestern University. He is currently studying the effect of maternal obesity on the immune system of the offspring. In the future, Yem is planning on going to medical school to become a physician.  

Elysse Phillips

Lab Manager (2020-2022)

Graduate student at UCSF

Kim R. Montaniel

Graduate Student (2018-2021)

Matthew Bucher

Lab manager (2016-2020),

Now PhD student at University of Oregon

Bailey Simon

Research assistant (2016-2018)

Now studies at WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine

Matthew Lambert, Ph.D.  Postdoctoral fellow (2017-2018)

Now faculty at Linfield University

Nolan Gregg, Summer student, 2023

Carole J.  Kassab, volunteer student  (2017-2020)

Nora Hendriks, Murdock scholar (2017-2019)