Dr. Mortreux is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutrition and a Ryan Assistant Professor of Neuroscience. Before starting at URI in 2022, she was an Instructor at Harvard Medical School (2019-2022) in Boston, MA.
Dr. Mortreux obtained her B.Sc (2010) and European M.Sc (2012) in genetics and life sciences, along with a European Magistere of Genetics (2012), which were combined to laboratory work in l’Universita Degli Studi di Padova, Italy , at the University of California San Francisco, USA, and at Université Paris Diderot Paris VII in Paris, France. She then received her Ph.D. in physiopathology/cell biology in Paris in 2016.
She pursue her postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School, focusing on NASA-funded studies. She created the first rat analog model of partial gravity, and studied musculoskeletal deconditioning and recovery, and used circulating miRNA and electrical impedance myography as new biomarkers. She then investigated the effects of resveratrol, a common polyphenol, as a mitigating countermeasure to prevent muscle deconditioning and assessed the impact of disuse on the circadian system.
Dr. Mortreux is currently supported by /involved in on 5 funded NASA-grants, and an active member of the NASA Analysis Working Group for the Animal Life Science Data Archive, an open-science endeavor.
Dr. Mortreux received additional funding from the Rhode Island Foundation and the URI College of Health Sciences to better understand how nutraceutical components can impact muscle homeostasis and the cellular receptors that may be at play.
Dr. Mortreux serves as a Scientific Advisor for GravityLab, a company developing a free-flying satellite to enable partial gravity research in low Earth orbit, and is joined the Board of Advisors for SEDS France (Students for the Exploration and Development of Space).
