Grazyna Jasienska

Biological anthropologist Grazyna Jasienska is a Professor at the Institute of Public Health, Jagiellonian University Medical College in Krakow, Poland. Her research interests include reproductive ecology, human fertility, life history, and the implications of evolutionary biology for medicine and public health. She investigates the interactive effects of genetic, developmental and lifestyle determinants of variation in human reproductive function at both the population and individual level. Jasienska recognizes that while recommendations about physical activity for women and men are similar, the effects of exercise on female physiology and health are complex and physically active women face important physiological trade-offs.

Much of her research takes place in rural Poland, where she directs the Mogielica Human Ecology Study Site (Beskid Wyspowy range), which includes five villages in southern Poland characterized by traditional, agricultural lifestyle, where she and her students investigate the effects of hard physical work on women’s reproductive physiology. The study site also creates a perfect setting for research on the health of children in large families and the relationships between the number of children and parental health and life span, as well as for the study of the importance of grandmothers for the well-being of families.

Her publications include The Fragile Wisdom: An Evolutionary View on Women's Biology and Health and The Arc of Life: Evolution and Health Across the Life Course.

Jasienska holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in biological anthropology from Harvard University and a MS.c. in biology from Jagiellonian University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and had a research fellowship from the Research Council of Norway. She has received research grants from the National Science Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and from the Polish Committee for Scientific Research.