School
Dr. Kyra J. W. Mendez, PhD, MPH, RN is an Assistant Professor and Director of the PhD Program in the Conway School of Nursing at The Catholic University of America. Her research focuses on chronic condition self-care and self-management, family caregiving, biomarkers of aging—including telomere length, DNA methylation, and epigenetic clocks—and digital health interventions. Her mission is to improve the health and well-being of individuals and families living with chronic conditions by examining psychosocial and biobehavioral determinants of health to inform holistic health interventions
Dr. Mendez completed her postdoctoral training as a Cancer Prevention Fellow at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, and as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Social and Behavioral Research Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH. She earned both her PhD in Nursing and MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from Johns Hopkins University and holds a BSN from Florida Atlantic University.
As Director of the PhD Program at the Conway School of Nursing, Dr. Mendez is dedicated to mentoring the next generation of nurse scientists. She is committed to fostering rigorous scholarship, advancing interdisciplinary collaboration, and preparing future leaders to address complex health challenges through innovative research and evidence-based practice.