Susan Malone

Susan Kohl Malone, PhD, RN, is an Assistant Professor at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. Her research focuses on understanding how sleep patterns and circadian rhythms impact metabolic health, with particular emphasis on preventing type 2 diabetes through personalized sleep interventions. She investigates how improving sleep health can reverse metabolic syndrome in diverse populations and addresses critical health disparities in sleep and cardiometabolic outcomes. Malone also teaches courses on lifestyle approaches to wellness and mentors doctoral students in sleep health research.
 

Malone has led multiple NIH-funded research projects, and is currently investigating metabolically-relevant hormonal rhythms in adults with prediabetes and short sleep duration, as well as multimodal dynamic biosensing for quantifying long COVID symptom progression. Her work combines nursing science, behavioral science, and circadian biology to develop evidence-based interventions that improve health outcomes across the lifespan. 
 

Prior to joining the faculty at NYU Meyers, Malone served as a Senior Research Scientist at the college and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology. She brings extensive clinical experience as a certified school nurse and diabetes educator, having worked in various healthcare settings including diabetes treatment centers and school health programs. This clinical background informs her translational research approach to making sleep science accessible and applicable to real-world health challenges.
 

Among her many honors, Malone has received the Marion R. Gregory Distinguished Dissertation Award from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, recognition as a research poster winner at the National Association of School Nurses Annual Conference, and the unique honor of having the annual Susan Kohl Award established in her name at Georgetown University.
 

Malone earned her BSN from Georgetown University School of Nursing and her MSN and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. She completed postdoctoral training as a Senior Research Scientist at New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing and as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine's Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology, where she developed expertise in sleep and circadian health research. Her doctoral dissertation examined whether chronotype modifies the relationship between sleep duration and body mass index in adolescents, establishing her foundation in sleep health across the lifespan.