« Return to all Inductees

Dr. Carolyn Mazure is a dynamic force in the field of women's health. In 1998, she established Women's Health Research at Yale (WHRY), a gender-specific research facility that generates scientific investigations of gender differences, broadening the scope of knowledge on all human health. Dr. Mazure is also a professor of psychiatry and psychology at Yale and has helped to raise millions of dollars for women's health research, transforming the way we think about and treat women's health issues.

Born in New York, Dr. Mazure earned a B.A. from the State University of New York and a Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University. She came to New Haven, Conn., to train as a clinical psychology intern at the Yale University School of Medicine and would eventually become the school’s Chief Psychologist and Professor of Psychiatry.

Until the 1990s, women had not been included in clinical research as a gender-specific group. Scientists had assumed that research results from studies involving male subjects would also apply to female subjects. However, when women were included in studies, results showed that this was not always the case. Believing that this could lead to new and exciting research opportunities, Dr. Mazure pioneered a new avenue of research by applying for and receiving funding that enabled her to found the WHRY, the nation’s largest interdisciplinary research program devoted to women’s health research. WHRY initiates new research, answering pressing health questions for women and focusing on the importance of gender difference in understanding a variety of conditions affecting women including cancer, osteoporosis and heart disease. WHRY also builds research collaborations nationally and launches new investigators into careers studying gender and health. A prolific writer and expert on stress and depression in women, Dr. Mazure is also the Scientific Director for Yale’s National Institutes of Health-funded specialized center for research on gender-specific factors associated with stress and cocaine addiction. The center’s work has led the way in innovative and effective research on depression, underscoring the value of gender-specific data.

In addition to the WHRY and her own research, Dr. Mazure is the Yale School of Medicine’s Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs. In this role, she is responsible for all appointments and promotions, developing faculty policy, and managing the hiring, advancement, retention and retirement of more than 1,500 full-time faculty members. She has also played a significant role on the international stage, lecturing at the Smithsonian and NASA and testifying before the U.S. Congress on issues related to women's health. She has thus impacted national policy and broadened the scope of women's health in the U.S. and around the world.

Dr. Mazure’s immense vision and boundless dedication to exploring and identifying gender-specific differences in health and disease have been rewarded with numerous honors. In 2007, she received the Marion Spencer Fay Award honoring a distinguished woman physician or scientist whose national leadership has had a major impact on research and the application of science to healthcare. The American Psychological Association Committee on Women in Psychology’s Distinguished Leadership Award, recognizing innovative research and leadership that improves women’s lives and health outcomes, was presented to her in 2008. In 2010 she was elected to the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.

Related Links:

Women's Health Research at Yale

Science Hero: Dr. Carolyn Mazure

WHRY Video Gallery