The Team

Stephanie Albert, PhD, MPA, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. The vast majority of her research has been dedicated to evaluating programs intended to improve the health and well-being of underserved populations.  Her research interests include: (1) determinants of eating behaviors, including intrapersonal, interpersonal, environmental, and policy factors; (2) adolescent health and well-being; and (3) media consumption. Her most recent work aims to mitigate weight stigma at a population-level.

Keywords: Weight stigma, Weight bias, Determinants of eating behaviors, Youth health and well-being, Body inclusivity, Community health, Evaluation

Marie Bragg, PhD, earned her PhD in clinical psychology at Yale University and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health at the NYU School of Medicine and holds an affiliate appointment in the Marketing Department at NYU Stern School of Business. Her research examines the influence of social media and food marketing on adolescent health behaviors. She received the NIH Early Independence Award and an R01 from the National Cancer Institute to study how exposure to unhealthy food and beverage advertisements affects food choices among Black and Latinx youth. She has also testified on various food policy proposals to the New York City Council, the New York State Assembly, and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Keywords: Food Policy, Food Security, Food Marketing, Mental Health, Adolescent Health

Omni Cassidy, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine/Langone Health where she directs the Food, Culture, & Tech Lab. She examines the intersections of food, culture, and technology with a specific focus on how food and beverage companies use immersive digital technologies, such as virtual reality, to market unhealthy products to communities of color. She also explores ways to leverage advanced digital technologies to develop, improve, and inform novel interventions to address behavior change, shift cultural narratives about food and food sovereignty, and inform policy. Her ultimate goal is to promote food environments that nourish both people and the planet.

Keywords: Immersive Technology, Food Marketing, Health Disparities, Food Policy

Alicia Chung, EdD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.  Her research interests include health promotion of sleep, diet and play behaviors that reduce obesity risk in families of color to narrow the health disparities gap. Dr. Chung’s research interests also include the utility of digital technology tools, such as social media, mobile apps and wearables, to engage hard to reach populations in health behavior change. She is currently a faculty member in the Center for Early Childhood Health and Development (CEHD), under the mentorship of Laurie Brotman, PhD (CEHD, Director), in the Department of Population Health. Dr. Chung was a awarded an early career K01 award in 2023, where she will develop a digital prototype of a digital behavioral sleep intervention for Black families with young children. Her mixed methods study will center the preferences of Black families, using human-centered design approaches and implementation science, to improve sleep health outcomes in the child via parent empowerment strategies.

Prior to receiving her K award, she lead the community engagement partnership for a place-based initiative to enhance school readiness among children, families and school leaders in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Through this work, in collaboration with colleagues at CEHD, she was able to culturally adapt parent-focused interventions, to address the social-emotional wellbeing of Pre-K children. Working alongside NYU’s Family Health Center, she is able to develop cross-collaborations in the medical, education and a community setting to develop strategies to address social determinant of health needs for children and families.

Over the course of her career, she has developed and lead several pilot initiatives that promote sleep, diet and physical activity via e-health cartoons and m-health mobile devices in the parent-child dyad family unit, via pilot grants from the NIH and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Chung has published on this work, as well as on sleep health disparities and chronic disease prevention, as reflected by her over 30 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and national and international conference presentations. Dr. Chung is also an alumna of the Program to Increase Diversity in Behavioral Medicine and Sleep Disorders Research (PRIDE) program at NYU Langone’s Center for Healthful Behavior Change, where she completed her post-doctoral studies in 2019.

Keywords: Pediatric sleep, Obesity prevention, Digital health, M-health, Nutrition, Parent engagement

Roxanne Dupuis, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Her research examines the relationship between foodways and health, with an emphasis on achieving health equity through evidence-based policies and interventions. Originally from Canada, Roxanne earned her PhD in Population Health Sciences at Harvard University.

Keywords: Nutrition, Food Policy, Obesity, Food Allergy, Health Equity

Brian Elbel, PhD, MPH, is the Associate Dean, Research Mission at NYU Langone Health and Professor of Population Health and Health Policy at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. He also directs the Section on Health Choice, Policy and Evaluation at NYU Grossman. Dr. Elbel examines how policies and the environment influence health and health behaviors, particularly obesity and chronic disease, for children and adults. He uses statistical and econometric methods and diverse data sources, including administrative, sales and other data, to understand health outcomes. Throughout his research, he seeks to understand how social determinants create differences in outcomes across race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status, and how policy can be leveraged to reduce these differences.

His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Science Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. His work has been featured in national television, radio, and print media. Dr. Elbel earned his B.A. from The University of Texas at Austin and MPH and PhD in Health Policy/Health Economics from Yale University.

Matthew Hayek, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in Environmental Studies. His scientific research examines the environmental impacts of our food system, with a specific focus on greenhouse gas emissions, land use. This research has been used in policy analysis for quantifying the contributions that agriculture, land use, nutrition, and climate mitigation policies can make toward meeting emissions reductions, food security, conservation, and other domestic and international policy targets. To accomplish this, he makes use of quantitative tools such as statistical modeling and large geospatial datasets. He received his PhD in Environmental Science and Engineering from Harvard University, which was followed by a postdoc appointment at the Harvard Law School. He is also an affiliated faculty member in the NYU Center for Data Science and the NYU Wild Animal Welfare Program.

Key Words: Environmental Studies, Sustainability, Food Policy, Food Security

Tatiana Homonoff, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service. Her research identifies areas in which behavioral economics can improve public policy design. Her current projects include interventions aimed at minimizing administrative burdens and improving access to government programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). She is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and serves on the editorial boards of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, National Tax Journal, and Behavioural Public Policy. Homonoff received a Bachelor’s from Brown University and a PhD in Economics from Princeton University.

Keywords: SNAP, WIC, Administrative Burden

Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH, is Paulette Goddard Professor, of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003 and from which she officially retired in September 2017.  She is also Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell.  She earned a PhD in molecular biology and an MPH in public health nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been awarded honorary degrees from Transylvania University in Kentucky (2012) and from the City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College (2016).  In 2023, she was awarded The Edinburgh Medal (for science and society).

Key Words: Food Policy, Molecular Biology, Nutrition

Jennifer Pomeranz, JD, MPH, is a public health lawyer who researches policy and legal options to address the food environment, obesity, products that cause public harm, and social injustice that lead to health disparities.

Prior to joining the NYU faculty, Professor Pomeranz was an Assistant Professor at the School of Public Health at Temple University and in the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple. She was previously the Director of Legal Initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. She has also authored numerous peer-reviewed and law review journal articles and a book, Food Law for Public Health, published by Oxford University Press in 2016.

Professor Pomeranz leads the Public Health Policy Research Lab and regularly teaches Public Health Law and Food Policy for Public Health.

“Policy is so important because it is the most effective way to influence public health. I got into public health to change the world — to improve health and address inequities.”

Keywords: Public health, Law, Food policy, Obesity, Health Disparities

Brennan Rhodes-Bratton, PhD is a Postdoctoral Fellow who aims to understand how societal structures, such as structural racism, gentrification, and food stigma, impede healthful eating attitudes, dispositions, and practices of mothers across the lifespan, which in turn influence cardiometabolic health outcomes of their children. Dr. Rhodes-Bratton approaches her work using theories and methods from sociology, epidemiology, nutrition, and urban studies. She has developed a theoretical framework of food health lifestyles (FLT) and food habits to examine how neighborhood change can influence health outcomes. FLT is used to inform and create effective health equity programs for communities of the global majority most impacted by social forces responsible for inequity.

Keywords:  Cardiometabolic health, Food environment, Food habitus, Health equity,  Social theory

Karla Rodriguez, DNP, RN, CNE, NC-BC, DipACLM, FNYAM, is a Clinical Assistant Professor at New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing. She has a background in pediatrics and adult medical surgical nursing with an interest in lifestyle behaviors, mobilizing patients back into the community and taking part in making positive lifestyle changes for lifelong health. She is also a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine.

Keywords: Lifestyle Medicine, Developmental Trajectory, Nutrition

Pasquale Rummo, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Professor in the Section on Health Choice, Policy and Evaluation in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. A major focus of his work involves examining the impact of food policies and interventions on diet practices, including evaluating the role of healthy eating strategies in promoting healthy diet practices and food purchasing behaviors in multiple retail settings. Examples include testing the impact of financial incentives, taxes, calorie and warning labels, and various behavioral economic strategies on food purchases, including a focus on understanding inequities in the design and impact of these strategies.

Keywords: Food Policy, Food Marketing, Menu Labeling, Economics, Health Disparities

Cecil Scheib, PE, CEM, LEED AP, has been NYU’s Chief Sustainability Officer since 2018. Cecil formerly served as Chief Program Officer at Urban Green Council and the Managing Director of the Building Resiliency Task Force for the City of New York. As Director of Energy and Sustainability at NYU from 2007 to 2012, Cecil was intimately involved in guiding NYU towards environmental excellence, leading efforts related to the co-gen plant, the Green Grants Program, 30% emissions reductions, greater solid waste diversion rates, weaving sustainability into our procurement, and drafting NYU’s Climate Action Plan. Cecil founded the eco-village Dancing Rabbit; is a New York State licensed professional engineer; and is a Certified Energy Manager and LEED Accredited Professional. He serves on the Board of Directors of Urban Green Council. He earned a BS in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford University.

Keywords: Food, Climate, Sustainable dining, Food policy

Cassandra L. Thiel, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Departments of Population Health and Ophthalmology. She is also CEO of Clinically Sustainable Consulting LLC.

Dr. Thiel’s research utilizes life cycle assessment and principles of industrial ecology to analyze and improve the environmental performance of infrastructure systems, hospital design, healthcare practice, and medical technologies. This new field of study (sustainable healthcare or clinical sustainability) introduces medical providers to data-driven, environmentally preferable solutions, while developing and improving sustainability metrics for measuring human and environmental health.

As a 2014–2015 Fulbright–Nehru fellow, Dr. Thiel analyzed the materials used, the waste generated, and the environmental footprint of cataract surgery at Aravind Eye Care System in southern India. Her team found that Aravind’s approach generated just 5% of the carbon emissions as the same surgery done in the United Kingdom. This study demonstrated that reusable surgical materials and careful process design can produce excellent patient outcomes, while reducing costs and the environmental footprint. The team is testing interventions designed to reduce the footprint and cost of cataract care in the United States, while maintaining excellent outcomes. Her lab is also conducting research focused on radiology, inpatient units, and surgical waste.

Dr. Thiel holds additional faculty appointments with NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, where she teaches courses on operations management and environmental sustainability, and with NYU Tandon School of Engineering, in the Department of Civil and Urban Engineering.

Keywords: Climate change, Greenhouse gases, Mitigation, Adaptation, Healthcare, Medicine

Angela Trude, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Nutrition Program at NYU Steinhardt, Department of Nutrition and Food Studies. She completed her PhD in Human Nutrition in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she led the implementation and evaluation of a NIH-funded community-based randomized controlled trial to prevent childhood obesity.

Her work examines the systemic roots of preventable chronic diseases with the objective of identifying and testing solutions for at-risk populations. Her research trajectory includes three main areas: i) community-based interventions in low-resource settings; ii) food policy strategies to ensure equitable access to affordable, nutritious food; and iii) early life modifying factors to maximize physical health and productivity. She is the lead author of research articles published in peer-reviewed journals including Maternal & Child Nutrition, Public Health Nutrition, and The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health that examine modifiable factors for chronic disease prevention (i.e., dietary behaviors, food environment, built environment, physical activity, and sleep), child development, and intervention evaluations.

Prior to joining NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, Dr. Trude was a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Growth and Nutrition at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where she secured a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association to examine the longitudinal effect of sleep on weight gain among low-income adolescent girls. She is also the Principal Investigator of a research project supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that evaluates online grocery purchase patterns among families receiving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the context of the USDA SNAP online grocery pilot in Maryland.

Keywords: Equitable food system, Community-based interventions, Food and Nutrition security

Ratnalekha Viswanadham, PhD, is an Associate Research Scientist in the HiBRID Lab in the Division of Healthcare Delivery Science. She uses experimental designs and machine learning to reveal insights into the effectiveness of behavior-based interventions on health-focused decision-making. Previously at NYUGSOM, she was a T32-funded Population Health Science Scholar. Lekha holds PhDs in marketing and neuroscience from INSEAD and Sorbonne Université, respectively, where she researched the mechanisms and boundary conditions of self-control, mostly for food, with applications in grocery retail and obesity treatment. Outside of NYUGSOM, Dr. Viswanadham is also a data scientist with the U.S. General Services Administration’s Evaluation Division, committed to helping the federal government make evidence-based decisions that better serve the public.

Keywords: Machine learning, Preventive medicine, Behavioral economics, Decision-making

Andrew Ashley, PhD is focused on the following research interests: South India, New Jersey, rice, agriculture, seeds, diaspora, diabetes, metabolism, microbes, topology, science and technology studies, political economy, cultural studies.

Stefani Bardin, PhD explores the influences of corporate culture and industrial food production on our food system and the environment. She works with neuroscientists, biologists, engineers and gastroenterologists to ground her research in the scientific world. These investigations take the form of single and multi-channel videos, immersive and interactive installations as well as tools for measuring and/or mediating these influences.

Amy Bentley is Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University. A historian with interests in the social, historical, and cultural contexts of food, she is the author of Inventing Baby Food: Taste, Health, and the Industrialization of the American Diet (University of California Press, 2014), (James Beard Award finalist, and ASFS Best Book Award). For more information see inventingbabyfood.com.

Other books include Eating for Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of Domesticity (University of Illinois, 1998), A Cultural History of Food in the Modern Era (editor) (Bloomsbury, 2011), and the co-edited volume with Simona Stano Food for Thought: Nourishment, Culture, Meaning (Springer 2021). Book chapter and journal articles feature such topics as ketchup in Reagan’s America, the politics of southwestern cuisine, and a historiography of food riots (see Selected Publications below). Her current research projects include a history of food in US hospitals, and the cultural and historical contexts of meat and dairy substitutes.

In addition to her work as a food historian, she is involved in a wide range of food-related academic and applied projects, including the Food and COVID-19 NYU digital archive, and as co-founder of the NYU Urban Farm Lab and the Experimental Cuisine Collective (2007-2016). The former Editor-in-Chief of Food, Culture, and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research (2013-2019), Bentley is co-editor with Peter Scholliers of the book series Food in Modern History: Traditions and Innovations (Bloomsbury). She serves as a board member for the Bloomsbury Food Library, the Cornell University HEARTH Collection, the book series Food and Society: New Directions (Bristol University Press) and the journals Food and Foodways, Graduate Journal of Food Studies and Gastronomy.

Jeannette M. Beasley, PhD, RD, MPH is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Nutrition and Food Studies and Medicine at New York University. She trained in biology at the College of William and Mary (BS), nutrition at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (MPH, RD) and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (PhD).

Her research focuses on understanding the role of nutrition in chronic disease prevention, particularly in furthering the understanding of the role of nutrition in the prevention of cardiovascular disease in diverse populations and refining recommendations regarding the protein needs of older adults. This work has resulted in over 75 peer-reviewed publications and eight books or book chapters. She has received funding from National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control, and private foundations. She serves as an Associate Editor for BMC Public Health and as a peer reviewer for over twenty other academic journals.

She previously held academic appointments at Group Health Research Institute, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She also served as a Senior Fellow at Durham University in the United Kingdom and on the faculty for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ Certificate in Weight Management training program.

Jennifer Schiff Berg graduated from the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University with a master’s degree in Food Service Management in 1996 and a PhD in Food Studies in 2006. She has taught numerous courses in the Department since 1990 and now serves as the director for the Graduate Program in Food Studies.

With a focus on the intersection of food, culture, and identity, she conducts her own research on Jewish American foodways. Her dissertation, entitled From Pushcarts Peddlers to Gourmet Take-Out: New York City’s Iconic Foods of Jewish Origin, 1920 to 2005, examines the history and symbolic significance of New York’s iconic foods of Jewish origin. Recent and forthcoming publications include co-editing Questione di Gusti: A Matter of Taste, for Gambero Rosso, a book chapter for The Encyclopedia of Jews in American Culture, a forthcoming essay on New York City’s icon foods for Gastropolis: Food and New York City and several encyclopedia entries on subjects ranging from “pizza” to “food studies.”

Berg serves as the treasurer for the Association for the Study of Food and Society, an international organization dedicated to an interdisciplinary discourse on the role of food in culture and society and advisory board member for the American Institute of Wine and Food. She co-chair Days of Taste, a yearly farm-to-table program for 2000 New York City public school students. She is a certified Greenmarket tour guide and tour market trainer for the New York City Council on the Environment.

Jessica Bihuniak, PhD, RD is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Nutrition. She received her MS in Health Promotion Sciences and PhD in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Connecticut (UCONN) where she trained under the advisement of Jane Kerstetter, PhD, RD (UCONN) and Karl Insogna, MD (Yale University School of Medicine).

Dr. Bihuniak’s clinical studies focus on nutritional interventions across the life span. She is interested in how different sources of dietary protein and amino acids affects skeletal health and body composition. She has shown specific effects of dietary protein on calcium absorption that do not support the concept that protein is detrimental to bone or musculoskeletal health in older adults. She is also actively pursuing studies evaluating the impact of a Mediterranean-Style diet on a variety of health outcomes, including bone and cardiovascular disease risk factors. Toward the other end of the life span, she is investigating behavioral weight loss interventions for emerging adults on college campuses. She has several peer-reviewed publications in nutrition and endocrine journals, including The Journal of Nutrition and The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. She also has interviews published in Nutrition Action Healthletter and online by the American Society for Nutrition.

Dr. Bihuniak has served as a faculty member in the Department of Allied Health Sciences at UCONN and was recognized for her excellence in both teaching and research. She was also appointed as a Visiting Research Scientist in the Department of Internal Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine.

Alex Bollington is a recent graduate from New York University with a Masters Degree in Food Studies and a Bachelors Degree in Environmental Studies. He is passionate about research that explores the intersection of public health, nutrition, agriculture, and the environment.

Salo Coslovsky’s research analyzes how governments in developing countries build legal authority and use it to influence routine business practices. He is particularly interested in the enforcement of labor, environmental, food safety, and similar regulations that protect vulnerable groups from exploitation and abuse. This is a topic of much contemporary concern as it addresses the twin challenge of how markets can be more vibrant and more humane. This topic is also forward looking, as it examines how governments can promote economic development even when they are restricted by international treaties, relatively free trade, and the need to attract transnational capital flows.

Professor Coslovsky conducts most of his research in Brazil, and has studied numerous industries, including the production of pig-iron, sugar and ethanol, brazil-nuts, farmed shrimps, cattle ranching, and more. In addition to his academic work, Coslovsky has advised Brazilian and multilateral organizations, including the Ministry of Environment, the Environmental Protection Agency, the International Labor Organization, and the Inter-American Development Bank on matters of policy design and implementation.

He received an M.A. in Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; Ph.D. in Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Andrea Deierlein’s research focuses on examining how dietary, behavioral, and environmental factors contribute to reproductive health outcomes and chronic-disease development throughout the lifespan.

Dr. Deierlein is trained as a nutritional epidemiologist. Much of her research has
examined predictors and outcomes of maternal metabolic health-related conditions during pregnancy and the postpartum, specifically, excessive gestational weight gain, hyperglycemia, and obesity. She contributed to a systematic evidence-based review examining outcomes of weight gain during pregnancy at the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality. This review informed the development of the 2009 Institute of Medicine Gestational Weight Gain Guidelines. Dr. Deierlein received the K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award to expand her training to include the study of toxic environmental chemicals and metals. She conducted research examining associations of
endocrine-disrupting toxicant exposures during childhood and changes in anthropometric measurements through adolescence among girls. She also conducted a series of analyses examining maternal prenatal exposures to phthalates with weight gain and biomarkers of cardiometabolic health in women during pregnancy and throughout the postpartum. Recently, Dr. Deierlein has expanded her research to include disability-related disparities in nutrition and reproductive health.

Carolyn Dimitri is an applied economist who studies food systems and food policy, focusing on how food moves from the farm to the consumer. A common thread throughout her research is the role of governmental and private institutions in facilitating transactions between buyers and sellers, including how food labels transmit unobservable information about product quality to buyers and how policies support farmer income and consumer health.

Dr. Dimitri is widely recognized as the leading US expert in the procurement and marketing of organic food, and has published extensively on the distribution, processing, retailing, and consumption of organic food. She has published over 35 papers and reports, and given more than 30 talks, on organic food and agriculture. Her paper “Organic food consumers: What do we really know about them?” received a commendable paper award from the British Food Journal in 2013. She currently serves on the Executive Board of the Organic Farming Research Foundation and on the Scientific Board of the Organic Center. In January 2021, Dr. Dimitri began a five year term as the consumer representative on the National Organic Standards Board, which is a federal advisory committee that is an integral part of preserving the integrity of the federally administered National Organic Standards.

Research in progress examines economic viability of certified organic farms in the United Sates. The study, funded by the Organic Research and Extension Initiative, will analyze data collected from organic farmers and intermediaries, to identify places where applied economic research would support the success of the organic sector. Other work in progress assesses the efficacy of a farm to school training curriculum for farmers, which is intended to make it easier for farmers to market their products to schools. Dr. Dimitri is collaborating with the National Farm to School Network and the National Center for Appropriate Technology on this project.

Recently completed research examines the role of nutrition incentives in improving diet quality of low-income consumers residing in underserved neighborhoods. A key barrier to improving diet quality identified is the failure of consumers to use the nutrition incentives. This failure is the result of several factors, including transportation difficulties and language barriers to using nutrition incentive programs such as the Healthy Savings Program, which was piloted by NYC. Related research examined the effectiveness of nutrition incentives, similar to the Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentives first included in the Agricultural Act of 2014, on both actual and perceived consumption of fresh produce of low-income consumers. Other completed research found that urban agriculture in the United States is largely driven by social motives, such as raising awareness about the food system, rather than providing new profitable markets for farmers.

Dr. Dimitri is an Associate Editor of the journal Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, the leading interdisciplinary food systems journal. Prior to joining the NYU faculty, Dr. Dimitri worked as a research economist at the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She earned a PhD in Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a BA in Economics from SUNY Buffalo.

Juan Echenique’s research is focused on investigating how various policies and individual decisions shape the development of children and adolescents. 

I am particularly interested in understanding the effects on overall health and socioemotional learning pro from birth to adulthood. To achieve this, I use a combination of economic theory and statistical methods to develop causal estimates about these relations.

Nataliya Galifianakis is a Clinical Associate Professor of Biology at NYU Arts & Science.

Professor Guttmacher directs the NYU MPH Program. Her research interests include policy and prevention of chronic and infectious diseases; poverty and public health; women’s health and evaluation. Much of her research in the past severalyears has been in the Cape Town Metro area of South Africa. Dr. Guttmacher is currently involved in two research projects in South Africa. One is on the integration of TB and HIV clinics in the Cape Town Metro are which she is doing with her Doctoral Student Jenny Uyei. The second is examining the health and educational risk faced by the youth from Zimbabwe who are currently refugees in South Africa. Dr. Guttmacher is also involved in the evaluation of a training program for NPs in Title 10 clinics. She has just published a book, “Community Based Health Interventions” with Pat Kelly and Yumary Ruiz, Jossey Bass, 2010. Dr. Guttmacher is a member of the Board of Public Health Examiners, NAF, and the Immediate Past President of the Council on Public Health Programs.

Natalie Henning is a Research Data Associate at NYU Langone Health working at the Healthcare Innovation Bridging Research, Informatics, and Design (HiBRID) Lab. Master of Public Health graduate with experience in epidemiology and data modeling.

Mahmood Hussain is a Professor at the Department of Foundations of Medicine at NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine. He is a strong education professional with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) focused in Biochemistry from Oklahoma State University. His research relates to lipoproteins, microsomal triglyceride transfer protein, apolipoprotein B.

Jennifer Jacquet is a Professor of Environmental Science and Policy at the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science at the University of Miami, and affiliated faculty with the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy. She is also Associate Research Director of the Climate Social Science Network (CSSN) at Brown University. From 2012–2022, she worked in the Department of Environmental Studies at New York University. She is the author of Is Shame Necessary (Pantheon, 2015) and The Playbook (Pantheon, 2022).

The focus of my research is to improve the treatment and prevention of obesity, especially in primary care settings. More than a third of adults in the United States have obesity, and people with obesity are at higher risk for diabetes, heart disease, and many cancers. Modest weight loss through lifestyle change can significantly improve health, but physicians and other health care practitioners often do not provide adequate treatment for the condition.

Through rigorous formative work with patients and providers, we developed two technology-assisted health coaching interventions. Through the addition of trained health coaches to primary care teams within the patient-centered medical home model of care, these interventions address the need to improve the frequency and quality of obesity-related counseling. They also help to link patients with effective weight management programs, which are underused.

We received funding from the National Institutes of Health (an R01 grant) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to perform cluster-randomized trials of these interventions within the Veterans Affairs and Montefiore Medical Center healthcare systems. The first of these trials is the Goals for Eating and Moving, or GEM, study, which uses nonclinician health coaches. The second trial, the Move! Towards Your Goals Peer Assisted Lifestyle Intervention Study, adds peer coaches to primary care teams to aid in weight loss efforts.

We also have a multiple primary investigator R01 grant, along with Joseph Ladapo, MD, PhD, on the Financial Incentives for Weight Reduction Study, or FIreWoRkS. For this project, we are comparing goal-directed financial incentives with outcome-directed financial incentives in low-income, primary care patients with obesity.

I am also co-director of the NYU Langone Comprehensive Program on Obesity. The program’s goal is to foster obesity-related collaborative basic science, clinical, and population health research. Through this program, I lead additional obesity-related pilot studies.

Minchao Jin is a Clinical Associate Professor at NYU Silver’s MSW Program at Shanghai and New York. His research areas are global social development, with a particular focus on financial capability. Together with colleagues, Dr. Jin assessed the status of poverty in China via asset-based approaches and made relevant policy suggestions. He also conducted research on how families in Africa can use livestock to improve child nutrition. His current work tries to answer what financial capability means and impacts, and how to improve financial capability for populations in developing countries.

Dr. Jin has practice experience in poverty alleviation and community development in several agencies from U.S., such as Fathers’ Support Center of St. Louis (Missouri, U.S.), the Department of Community Development of the City of East St. Louis (Illinois, U.S.) He has also actively engaged in social work and philanthropy practice in China, via providing program evaluation or training to various agencies.

Dr. Jin’s pedagogy values first the growth of students. He has taught both undergraduate and graduate students, and the courses including Social Work Research I, Human Behavior in the Social Environment I and II, Fundamental Statistics, Social Welfare Policies and Programs, Program Evaluation, and Social Development Theories.

Dr. Jin earned his PhD and MSW as a McDonnell Scholar at McDonnell International Scholars Academy at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. He also has a bachelor degree of science awarded by Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.

Emily M. Johnston, MPH, PhD is a senior research associate in the Health Policy Center. She studies health insurance coverage, access to care, Medicaid policy, reproductive health, and maternal and infant health with a focus on the effects of state and federal policies on the health and well-being of women and their families.

Filippa Juul, PhD, obtained her PhD in Public Health with a concentration in Epidemiology, specializing in nutritional epidemiology, in September 2020. Filippa is originally from Stockholm, Sweden. She completed a Bachelor’s degree in Nutrition and Dietetics at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain, and thereafter pursued a Master’s degree in Public Health Nutrition at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. Prior to joining NYU Filippa worked as a researcher at Karolinska Institutet, where her work focused on obesity epidemiology. She also has practical experience of working with public health initiatives, including obesity prevention among young children. Filippa is broadly interested in the impact of nutritional factors on chronic diseases. For her dissertation, Filippa examined the role of food processing in the risk of cardiovascular disease. She is currently holds a position as the Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow.

My research examines the interconnected challenges of nitrogen pollution, food security and sustainable development, with a particular focus on: 1) the scientific, socioeconomic and legal dimensions of returning to a safe planetary boundary for nitrogen; and 2) balancing the multiple, and often competing objectives of sustainable agriculture – from environmental protection to human wellbeing. I use an interdisciplinary set of research methods to investigate these issues, from Earth Systems and economic time series modeling, to expert elicitation and legal analysis. Prior to NYU, I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The Earth Institute at Columbia University. I received my B.Sc. in Chemistry and Law (2009) from the University of Bristol in the UK and my M.A. (2012) and Ph.D. (2014) in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy from Princeton University.

Kristie Lancaster is an Associate Professor of Nutrition and registered dietitian. Her work focuses on cultural, psychosocial, and environmental influences on dietary influences on dietary behaviors that affect hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity in vulnerable communities, especially African Americans. In the community, Dr. Lancaster works with faith-based and other community organizations to promote health in Harlem.

I am a nutrition and obesity epidemiologist, and my research focuses on identifying novel sociocultural and behavioral determinants of cardiometabolic disease among families from racial/ethnic minority groups. The goal of my research is to reduce cardiometabolic health disparities and improve health equity for underserved communities.

My research centers on the importance of family and the home environment for determining dietary intake and risk for obesity in youth. This has included an examination of dietary patterns, home food availability, parent-child relationships, and sibling relationships. While my research predominantly focuses on Hispanic/Latino families in the United States, I have also examined determinants of cardiometabolic health in South Asian immigrants in the United Kingdom.

I specialize in quantitative research methodology, including nutrition epidemiology and survey analysis. However, I aim to include qualitative and community-based participatory research in my upcoming research.

Yifei Li is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at NYU Shanghai and Global Network Assistant Professor at NYU. Prior to joining NYU Shanghai, he taught sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In the 2020-2021 academic year, he is also a Residential Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich.

Professor Li’s research concerns both the macro-level implications of Chinese environmental governance for state-society relations, marginalized populations, and global ecological sustainability, as well as the micro-level bureaucratic processes of China’s state interventions into the environmental realm. He has received research support from the United States National Science Foundation, the University of Chicago Center in Beijing, and the China Times Cultural Foundation, among other extramural sources. He is coauthor (with Judith Shapiro) of China Goes Green: Coercive Environmentalism for a Troubled Planet. His recent work appears in Current Sociology, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Environmental Sociology, Journal of Environmental Management, and other scholarly outlets. More information about Professor Li is available on his website.

Sonali McDermid is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies. She holds a Ph.D. (2011), and M. Phil. (2011) and an M.A. (2009) from the Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, specializing in Atmospheric Science and Climatology. She holds a B.A. in Physics from NYU (2006). McDermid’s research focuses on understanding interactions between climate change and variability, land-use, and agriculture, with an eye towards identifying and quantifying important feedbacks and uncertainties. To this end, she uses a variety of tools and datasets, including global climate and earth system models, process-based crop models, and observed datasets.

Her prior study focused on the impact of warmer climate conditions on the Asian Summer Monsoon circulation. She has recently undertaken a number of climate-agroecosystem assessments to quantify the impact of agriculture on global and regional environments, and how climate variability and change impacts food security and livelihoods. Her work strives to identify and contextualize the role of environmental preservation in food and nutrition security, particularly in the South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. What really constitutes responsible, sustainable agriculture and how might we lessen our impact while feeding everyone?

Previously, McDermid was a NASA Post-Doctoral researcher at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City. She also serves as Climate Co-Lead for the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (www.agmip.org), which is conducting integrated assessments of climate change and food security in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. She also continues her work with NASA GISS global climate model to better understand agriculture-climate interactions of global and regional climate-land surface interactions, and the impact of climate change and altered sea surface temperatures on the South Asian Summer Monsoon system. Her work has appeared in Climate Dynamics, Paleoceanography, Global Change Biology, and Anthropocene, and she presents annually at major conferences and scientific meetings.

Gia Merlo, MD, MBA, Med, DipABLM, FACLM is a clinical professor of nursing and Senior Advisor on Wellness, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, and a fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. Merlo recently published a textbook Lifestyle Nursing (Taylor & Francis/CRC Press, August 2022) that expands Lifestyle Medicine (an evidence-based approach in preventing, treating, and oftentimes, reversing chronic diseases) to Nursing. Her first book, Principles of Medical Professionalism (Oxford University Press, 2021), stresses the importance of physician wellness, the need to address the social determinants of health, as well as the need to address chronic diseases with prevention. Merlo is the Associate Editor of the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. She is a contributing author of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) curriculum Lifestyle Medicine 101 and of the board review course, Foundations to Lifestyle Medicine.

Merlo’s current book projects include Medical Professionalism: Theory, Education, and Practice (Oxford University Press, expected 2023), Lifestyle Psychiatry: Through the Lens of Behavioral Medicine (Taylor & Francis/CRC Press, expected 2023), A Handbook of Lifestyle Nursing (expected 2023).

Merlo is a part of the Psychiatry Faculty Group Practice at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and sees patients at NYULangone Health Psychiatry, 1 Park Avenue, New York, NY. She completed her Master of Education in Health Professions at Johns Hopkins University School of Education in August 2022 and is currently an Adjunct Faculty at Johns Hopkins helping students in the program complete their capstone projects.

Merlo has served on the board of directors of many nonprofits over the years and is currently on the board of directors of Plant-Powered Metro of New York (PPMNY) and the advisory board of the Global Positive Health Institute (GPHI). She is chair of the Mental and Behavioral Health Member Interest Group of the ACLM. She has been involved in clinician care and medical education for nearly 30 years in professional development and mental health, particularly for healthcare professionals.

Before joining NYU, Merlo was an associate dean of health professions at Rice University. She also taught medical students, residents, and fellows at Baylor College of Medicine, where she was a 2017-19 Master Teacher Fellow. She has served on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Rice University, Texas Children’s Hospital, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Melissa Metrick was the garden manager at Roberta’s, a popular farm-to-table restaurant dishing out wood-fired pizzas in Brooklyn. As garden manager, she designed and created the on-site kitchen garden, which is also used to educate the chefs and guests in how to grow food sustainably within a city environment. A graduate of the master’s program in Food Studies, Metrick was instrumental in establishing the NYU Urban Farm Lab, an educational greenspace located right on the university’s campus. Here, she teaches a hands-on Urban Agriculture class, where students have the opportunity to partake in crop planning, harvesting, and implementing sustainable urban agriculture practices. Metrick has upwards of a decade of experience in urban agriculture, from volunteering with Americorps to working at a school garden in South Berkeley to teaching children how to grow food at the Ruthe Howe Family Garden at the New York Botanical Gardens. She also holds a Horticultural Certificate from Brooklyn Botanic Gardens.

Robin Ortiz, PhD is a physician for adults and children completed the combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Urban Health Residency Program at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She is a current research fellow in the National Clinician Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

She graduated from Northeastern University with a Bachelor of Science degree in behavioral neuroscience and a minor in psychoneuroimmunology, trained at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and then completed medical school at Loyola University in Chicago.

She is dedicated to active research projects, within the scope of public health and epidemiology, studying early life environmental, stress, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and epigenetic influences on later life health and disease outcomes. Her career goal is to develop interventions that aim to prevent risk and build resiliency throughout life. To this aim, Dr. Ortiz has completed an NIH pre-bachelorette Intramural Research Training Award, and as a medical student the NIH Medical Research Scholars Program. Her research has spanned across bench, clinical and translational research projects, and involved independent statistical analyses. In these positions she has studied psychosocial, neuroimmune, and biochemical influences in chronic pain, cancer and cardiometabolic disease, and been productive in obtaining many successful recognitions and publications.

Her clinical work encompasses all domains of adult internal medicine and pediatric practice. She is a primary care provider at East Baltimore Medical Center’s Med-Peds practice and takes great joy in working intimately with her patients to build a stronger and healthier local community. Dr. Ortiz is fluent in Spanish, which allows her to work closely with Latino families and, therefore, she is dedicated to broadening access to care and safe initiatives to maintain health in all populations.  She has additional training in lifestyle intervention and behavior modification specializing in plant-based nutrition, motivational interviewing, positive parenting, self-hypnosis, mindfulness, and stress reduction.

Nicole Perez is a PhD candidate at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing.  She received her BSN and MSN from the University of Florida and completed a fellowship in nursing leadership at the University of Florida Health.

As a board certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, Nicole has worked with a variety of populations, particularly adults with mood disorders and comorbid medical issues.  She currently practices and provides psychiatric care to homeless women in a setting integrated with primary care.

Her broad research interests include examining the biological underpinnings and consequences of depressive symptoms in chronic conditions.  She is specifically interested in how depressive symptoms relate to epigenomics in persons with cardiometabolic conditions, and how expanding this knowledge may be used to inform novel strategies for prevention and management.  She has received the Barbara Jonas Psychiatric Mental Health Scholar award, and her dissertation work is currently funded through the NYU Langone School of Medicine Clinical and Translational Science Institute predoctoral fellowship program.

Fabio Parasecoli is a Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies. He has a Doctorate in Agricultural Sciences (Dr.sc.agr.) from Hohenheim University, Stuttgart (Germany), MA in Political Sciences from the Istituto Universitario Orientale, Naples (Italy), BA/MA in Modern Foreign Languages and Literature from the Università La Sapienza, Roma (Italy). He also holds a certificate in Islamic Studies from the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, Rome (Italy) and a graduate fellowship in the History Department at Beijing University, Beijing (China).

Fabio’s research explores the intersections among food, media, and politics, in particular in the fields of food heritage and intellectual property. His most recent projects focus on Food Design and the synergies between Food Studies and design. After covering Middle and Far Eastern political issues, he wrote for many years as the U.S. correspondent for Gambero Rosso, Italy’s authoritative food and wine magazine. Recent books include Al Dente: A History of Food in Italy (2014, translated into Italian in 2015 and into Korean in 2018), Feasting Our Eyes: Food, Film, and Cultural Citizenship in the US (2016, authored with Laura Lindenfeld), Knowing Where It Comes From: Labeling Traditional Foods to Compete in a Global Market (2017), and Food (2019, in the MIT Press series Essential Knowledge).

Previously, Fabio was a Professor and the Director of Food Studies Initiatives at The New School in NYC, where he launched the AA and BA/BS degrees in Food Studies.

Dr. Collin Popp is an early career investigator in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. His background is in nutrition and exercise physiology, and he carries the Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist (RD/RDN) credential. Dr. Popp completed a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association, Strategically Focused Research Network in obesity, in 2020. His research focuses on bio-behavioral interventions targeting weight loss and weight loss maintenance. In particular, he is interested in the effects of lifestyle interventions on body composition, energy expenditure, and metabolic adaptation. Additional interests include the impact of social determinants of health on obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Krishnendu Ray received his PhD in Sociology from SUNY Binghamton in 2001. He holds a master’s degree in Political Science from Delhi University, India. Prior to joining the NYU faculty in 2005, Krishnendu was a faculty member and an Acting Associate Dean for Curriculum Development at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA).

A food studies scholar, he is the author of The Migrant’s Table: Meals and Memories in Bengali-American Households (Temple University, 2004) and The Ethnic Restaurateur (Bloomsbury 2016). He co-edited Curried Cultures: Globalization, Food and South Asia (University of California Press, 2012), and special issues on “Street Vending and Global Cities” in Food, Culture & Society 24, 1 (Spring 2021), and “Culinary Cultures on the Move” in Verge Studies in Global Asias 9, 2 (Fall 2023).

George Reis manages Grounds & Waste at New York University, a global research university and one of the largest private universities in the United States. He oversees 40+ urban green spaces and the University’s waste hauling contract with 1,000 weekly pickups in 90+ buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Lisa Sasson is the Associate Dean of Global Affairs and Experiential Learning and a clinical professor at New York University’s Department of Nutrition and Food Studies.  In this role, Lisa directs the graduate dietetic internship and NYU’s study abroad in Tuscany, Italy: Its Cuisine, and the Mediterranean Diet and The study abroad program in Tel Aviv: Exploring Israel through Food, Nutrition and Culture.  She also teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses and works with the NYU dental faculty to advance nutrition and oral health in the dental curriculum.

In addition to her work at NYU, Lisa counsels private clients in healthy eating and weight management.  She is a nutrition consultant to public affairs at Nickelodeon and frequent commentator in the media.

Jeff Sebo works primarily in bioethics, animal ethics, and environmental ethics. He is author of Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves (Oxford University Press, 2022) and co-author of Chimpanzee Rights (Routledge, 2018) and Food, Animals, and the Environment (Routledge, 2018). He is also a board member at Minding Animals International and a mentor at Sentient Media.

Prior to this post, Jeff worked as Research Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Associate Director of the Parr Center for Ethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2015-2017), as Postdoctoral Fellow in Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health (2014-2015), and as Assistant Professor / Faculty Fellow in Animal Studies and Environmental Studies at New York University (2011-2014).

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Population Health, where I am jointly appointed in the Division of Healthcare Delivery Sciences and the Division of Medical Ethics. This joint appointment reflects my interest both in empirical work describing the world as it is and normative scholarship about how the world ought to be. I primarily study US health care through an organizational lens, applying theoretical frameworks from business ethics and political philosophy to managerial and policy dilemmas.

Some of my recent publications have explored hospital’s scope of legitimate responsibilities, the role of trust in health care delivery and the community-based organizations’ responses to Medicaid’s emphasis on social determinants.

Sally M. Vanegas, PhD is a graduate from the Biochemical and Molecular Nutrition program at Tufts University. She conducted her dissertation project at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging. She received the American Dietetic Association (ADA) Foundation Scholarship on May 2010, the Predoctoral fellowship award from the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) on April 2012, and the National Research Service Award for the NIDDK T32 Research Pre-doctoral Training in Nutrition and Chronic Disease on April 2012. Her research focused on the effects of whole grains on the gut microbiota and immune function. She is a graduate of Georgia State University and University of Florida, where she completed her Masters’ degrees in Nutrition and Dietetics and undergraduate degree in Microbiology, respectively. Her overall professional goal is dedicated towards establishing a career investigating the synergistic effect of lifestyle modifications along with medical treatment on the impact of disease management and treatment, specifically in clinical trials focused on obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Sandra Wittleder, PhD, is a Project Manager at the MOTIVATE Research Lab. She completed her PhD in psychology at the University of Hamburg and was a visiting scholar in the Department of Psychology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Sandra is passionate about understanding the cognitive processes underlying health behavior change and finding new multidisciplinary approaches to health interventions.

Brandon Woolf, PhD, is an interdisciplinary theater artist and a scholar of contemporary performance. Both his scholarship and performance practice work to facilitate connections and collaborations between artists, academics, arts and other administrators, and activists. He recently co-edited Postdramatic Theatre and Form (Bloomsbury, 2019), which intervenes in ongoing debates about contemporary experimental performance by developing a theory of theatrical form. Brandon’s monograph, Institutional Theatrics: Performing Arts Policy in Post-Wall Berlin (Northwestern University Press, 2021) shows how theater and performance can help us rethink our public institutions both in and beyond the arts. Focusing on the recent restructuring of a number of Berlin’s major theater institutions, and the interdisciplinary performance practices that responded to these shifts, he argues that cultural policy can be thought of as an artistic practice of infrastructural imagining and not just an administrative agenda for delegating funds. Moreover, understanding performance as itself a form of policy can help us rethink the ways artists lean on and into systems of state support as the very means of enacting their undoing. Brandon is also collaborating on a book with Stew, the Tony Award-winning playwright and composer of Passing Strange. Tentatively titled The Negro Problem – which is the name of Stew’s ever-shifting performance ensemble – this project will collect and publish the Stew’s extensive catalogue of interdisciplinary works; it will also curate a collection of critical essays about this work’s interventions in discourses on race, theater, and rock ‘n’ roll. Concurrent with his scholarship, Brandon’s artistic work explores theater’s capacity as a social practice. Over the last decade he co-founded and co-directed three performance ensembles – Culinary Theater, Shakespeare im Park Berlin, and the UC Movement for Efficient Privatization [UCMeP]. These groups have been featured in scholarly forums like Theatre Survey, South Atlantic Quarterly, L.M. Bogad’s Tactical Performance, and Barbara Fuchs’ Theater of Lockdown, as well as in the New York Times, London Guardian, Tagesspiegel, Berliner Zeitung, San Francisco Chronicle, The Kelly Clarkson Show, and Robert Reich’s 2013 film Inequality for All.  Brandon has recently developed and presented performances at the 14th Street Y, Tank, University Settlement, Fulton Center, Uncanny Valley, NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center, Barrow Group Theater, Dixon Place, Connelly Theater, the Kennedy Center, and the 2018 Prelude Festival at the CUNY Graduate Center. H was a Directing Fellow at the Drama League in 2015 and a “Next Stage” Artist-in-Residence there in 2017. In 2017–18, he was a fellow at LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture. And in 2020–21, he is an Institute Fellow at Target Margin Theater. His work has also been supported by the Fulbright Foundation, DAAD, Berlin Program for Advanced Studies, American Society for Theater Research, and the International Research Center for “Interweaving Performance Cultures.”

Kathleen Woolf, PhD focuses her work on the integrated role of nutrition and physical activity for lifelong health throughout the lifespan. For both individuals and populations, nutrition and physical activity contribute to overall quality of life and play major roles in protecting health and delaying the progression of disease. Hippocrates wrote: “If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.” Her research is multi-dimensional, involves human participants, and responds to key health and nutrition concerns of high priority in New York, the nation, and globally, supporting the current national dietary guidelines for nutrition (2010) and physical activity (2008). She has expertise in the assessment of nutrition and physical activity patterns (sedentary behaviors, physical inactivity, and physical activity) in healthy individuals (recreational/competitive athletes) and individuals with chronic disease (musculoskeletal, skin, & kidney disorders, obesity). Some of these studies have examined the health disparities experienced by individuals from different race and ethnic backgrounds, including Hispanic and Native American populations. She has designed and implemented randomized clinical intervention trials and is currently a co-investigator on a large Social Cognitive Theory-based behavioral intervention (diet, physical activity) using technology-based self-monitoring for patients with complex chronic disease.

Dr. Woolf has held leadership positions within the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics at the local, state, and national level. She is a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health and Fitness Journal. She has written a regular nutrition column for the USA Swimming magazine, SPLASH!, and has contributed to the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, Preventive Medicine, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Topics in Clinical Nutrition, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, Obesity, and Public Health Nutrition.

Dr. Woolf completed her bachelor’s degree in Food and Nutrition from Arizona State University and her dietetic internship at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. She holds a master’s degree in Nutritional Sciences from the University of California, Los Angles and a PhD in Exercise Science from Arizona State University.

I am a cardiovascular epidemiologist, and my research focuses on community, clinical and policy-based initiatives for the reduction of chronic disease morbidity and mortality. I have particular interest in improving cardio-metabolic health and lifestyle behaviors, including physical activity and nutrition in Asian American communities.

Prior to joining faculty at the NYU School of Medicine in 2014, I worked for six years at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) in the Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Tobacco Control on research pertaining to and evaluation of city nutrition policies and community-based initiatives to reduce the burden of chronic disease. At the NYU School of Medicine, I have deepened my expertise on health disparities in Asian American and immigrant populations and community-based, collaborative research approaches. Given these experiences, I possess a unique viewpoint on health, policy and research that encompasses both a citywide perspective paired with an understanding of specific health needs of disparity subgroups.

Shonna Yin, MD, MSc, is a general pediatrician and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Population Health at the NYU School of Medicine / Bellevue Hospital Center. She is an NIH-funded researcher whose work centers on the issue of health literacy and its implications for child health. A large focus of her work involves examining the intersection between health literacy and medication safety, including the development and evaluation of low literacy strategies to improve parent understanding of medication instructions. Dr. Yin is Principal Investigator of a multi-site NIH/NICHD-funded R01 to develop and evaluate a low literacy medication labeling and dosing strategy for pediatric prescription liquid medications. Some of her work in medication safety is featured in the Joint Commission book “Addressing Patients’ Health Literacy Needs.” Dr. Yin is a key member of the CDC’s PROTECT (Prevention of Overdoses and Treatment Errors in Children Taskforce) initiative, and served as co-chair of the subcommittee focused on the standardization of pediatric medication dosing instructions. She also serves as a consultant to the FDA’s Risk Communication Advisory Committee. Other areas of research focus include examining low literacy strategies to address obesity prevention as well as chronic disease management (e.g. asthma). Dr. Yin serves as co-Principal Investigator of a multi-site NIH/NICHD-funded R01 to develop and test a low literacy and numeracy-focused intervention for early childhood obesity prevention (Greenlight). She is also working on a CTSI-funded project to improve health provider and parent management of child asthma through a health literacy, information technology-based approach. Dr. Yin has provided health literacy expertise to many groups, including the CDC, FDA, IOM, and AAP. She was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Physician Faculty Scholar (2009-2012), and recipient of the Pfizer Fellowship in Health Literacy / Clear Health Communication (2007-2009).

Yaguang Zheng is an assistant professor at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. Her research focuses on cardiometabolic risk reduction by leveraging mobile health, electronic health records, and data science techniques. Zheng has explored behavioral phenotypes through the use of wireless devices in clinical trials and real-world settings and their impacts on cardiometabolic disease prevention and management. Zheng’s initial work focused on lifestyle behavior changes through mobile health, more specifically, using mobile health for self-monitoring and its impact on weight-loss outcomes. After identifying a critical knowledge gap in the area of engagement with mobile health, Zheng conducted a pilot study that found that older adults were able to use multiple mobile devices to improve diabetes self-management, debunking traditional perceptions of older adults as being skeptical of multiple mobile technologies.

Zheng has also applied machine learning algorithms to analyze data from a large real-world sample that has yielded varied patterns of use of wireless devices over the course of a year, findings which are helping to target subgroups of individuals who need long-term engagement in using mobile health devices. More recently, Zheng has worked on electronic health record data, including mobile health data from wearable devices, like continuous glucose monitors, which has real-world application for clinical practice.

Prior to joining the NYU Rory Meyers faculty, Zheng was a postdoctoral scholar supported by NIH grant T32 NR008857 Technology: Research in Chronic and Critical Illness at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing.

Zheng earned her PhD at the University of Pittsburgh. She also received a Nursing Informatics Certificate during her postdoctoral training.