Environmental Health Sciences Center

Dr. Cheryl Walker is a Research Obstetrician at the Perinatal Origins of Disparities Center and an Affiliate Scientist at the California national Primate Center. Her research focuses on developing non-hormonal vagianal contraceptive methods and how exposures experienced by women affect the developing brain during pregnancy.

Positions at UC Davis

• Research Obstetrician, Perinatal Origins of Disparities Center
• Affiliate Scientist, California National Primate Center

Research Papers

Laufer BI, Hasegawaa Y, Zhang Z, Hogrefe CE, Haapanan L, Hwang H, Zhu Y, Bauman MD, Van de Water JA, Taha AY, Slupsky CM, Golub MS, Capitanio JP, VandeVoort CA, Walker CK, LaSalle JM. Multi-omic brain and behavioral correlates of cell-free fetal DNA methylation in macaque maternal obesity models. Nat Commun. 2022 Sep 21;13(1):5538. doi:10.1038/s41467-022-33162-7.

Parenti M, Schmidt RJ, Ozonoff S, Shin HM, Tancredi DJ, Krakowiak P, Hertz-Picciotto I, Walker CK, Slupsky CM. Maternal Serum and Placental Metabolomes in Association with Prenatal Phthalate Exposure and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes in the MARBLES Cohort. Metabolites. 2022 Sep 2;12(9):829. doi:10.3390/metabo12090829. PMID:36144233.

Hasegawa Y, Zhang Z, Taha AY, Capitanio JP, Bauman MD, Golub MS, Van de Water J, VandeVoort CA, Walker CK, Slupsky CM. Impact of Maternal Obesity on the Gestational Metabolome and Infant Metabolome, Brain, and Behavioral Development in Rhesus Macaques. Metabolites. 2022 Aug 19;12(8):764. doi:10.3390/metabo12080764. PMID:36005637.

Zhong C, Shah R, Rando J, Park B, Girardi T, Walker CK, Croen LA, Fallin MD, Hertz-Picciotto I, Lee BK, Schmidt RJ, Volk HE, Newschaffer CJ, Salafia CM, Lyall K. Placental morphology in association with autism-related traits in the EARLI study. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2022 Jun 28;22(1):525. doi:10.1186/s12884-022-04851-4. PMID:35764940.

Zhu Y, Gomez JA, Laufer BI, Mordaunt CE, Mouat JS, Soto DC, Dennis MY, Benke KS, Bakulski KM, Dou J, Marathe R, Jianu JM, Williams LA, Gutierrez Fugón OJ, Walker CK, Ozonoff S, Daniels J, Grosvenor LP, Volk HE, Feinberg JI, Fallin MD, Hertz-Picciotto I, Schmidt RJ, Yasui DH, LaSalle JM. Placental methylome reveals a 22q13.33 brain regulatory gene locus associated with autism. Genome Biol. 2022 Feb 16;23(1):46. doi:10.1186/s13059-022-02613-1. PMID:35168652