Dr. Zuckerman is the President of the National Research Center for Women & Families, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank that works to improve policies and programs that affect the health and safety of women, children, and families. She received her Ph.D. in psychology from Ohio State University and was a post-doctoral fellow in epidemiology and public health at Yale Medical School. She started her career as a faculty member at Vassar College and Yale University. She left Yale to direct a research project at Harvard University, studying the life goals and self-images of women on seven college campuses.

From 1983 to 1993, Dr. Zuckerman worked as a Congressional staffer in the U.S. Congress, working for the House subcommittee that has oversight jurisdiction over the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including the FDA. She was responsible for more than a dozen Congressional investigations and hearings on a wide range of health issues, including the first Congressional hearings on breast implants. It was Dr Zuckerman’s congressional investigation of breast implants that first raised questions about the lack of safety data, which led to the FDA requiring safety studies of silicone gel implants in 1991. When the companies did not provide evidence that implants are safe, the FDA restricted their availability in 1992.

In 1993, Dr. Zuckerman went to the U.S. Senate to head up the health staff for the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, chaired by Sen. Jay Rockefeller. In that role, she started a Senate investigation of the early reports of illnesses among Gulf War veterans, which resulted in the first Senate hearings on the medical problems that became known as Gulf War syndrome. In 1995, Dr. Zuckerman served as a senior policy advisor in the White House, working in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Since 1996, she has served in leadership positions at non-profit organizations, and has been president of the National Center for Policy Research (CPR) for Women & Families since 1999.

Dr. Zuckerman’s work has resulted in news coverage on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, PBS, National Public Radio, 60 Minutes, 20/20, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, USA Today, Detroit Free Press, Washington Times, New York Daily News, Newsweek, Time, U.S. News and World Report, Family Circle, Glamour, Self, and many other newspapers, magazines, and radio programs. In addition, she is the author of four books and dozens of articles in medical and scholarly journals and national newspapers.