Abby Fleisch, MD, MPH

Assistant Professor
Maine Medical Center

Abby Fleisch, MD, MPH, is an environmental health researcher at the Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation at Maine Medical Center Research Institute and a pediatric endocrinologist at Maine Medical Center. Dr. Fleisch received her undergraduate and medical degrees from Northwestern University. She completed residency in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital/Boston Medical Center and fellowship in endocrinology at Boston Children’s Hospital. She participated in the Harvard-wide pediatric health services research fellowship and received a Masters of Public Health from Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. After serving on faculty at Boston Children’s Hospital for three years, she joined Maine Medical Center in October, 2016.

Dr. Fleisch’s research is focused on the extent to which prenatal and early life environmental exposures are associated with childhood cardiometabolic health. For example, in the Boston-area Project Viva cohort, she has demonstrated that higher ambient air pollution exposure during pregnancy is associated with maternal hyperglycemia, low fetal growth, and rapid infant weight gain, a mileau that may prime infants for adverse cardiometabolic health later in life. Dr. Fleisch is the principal investigator of a K23 Career Development Award from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Her research has also been funded by an Environmental Health Faculty Development Award at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. She received the Academic Pediatric Association Michael Shannon Research Award in 2012 and an Endocrine Society Early Career Investigator Award in 2016. Dr. Fleisch is a co-chair of the Academic Pediatric Association Environmental Health Special Interest Group.