Katherine Kwon Awarded $20,000 by the Academy of Dietetics & Nutrition
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation awarded Katherine Kwon the 2024 Jean Hankin Nutritional Epidemiology Research Grant of $20,000. The Jean Hankin Nutritional Epidemiology Research Grant is given to provide financial support to a doctoral student working on a dissertation in the area of nutritional epidemiology. Katherine’s winning grant proposal is titled: “Associations between duration of exclusive breastfeeding, infant iron status and neurocognition: longitudinal studies of 9-11 year old Ghanaian adolescents." Using data from the International Lipid-Based Nutrient Supplements (iLiNS) trial and its follow-up studies, Katherine will conduct secondary analyses to examine the impact of early-life nutrition on long-term cognitive development.
This grant will help fund her time, publications in peer-reviewed journals, software licensing, and conference travel expenses to present her study results. Her findings could inform programs and policies that promote breastfeeding, ensure adequate iron status throughout early childhood, and alleviate child food poverty, which could have long-lasting impacts on the cognitive development and growth of children in Ghana and other low- and middle-income countries.
Jean H. Hankin was a registered dietician, professor and researcher emeritus in the epidemiology program at the Cancer Research Center of Hawaiʻi and professor of public health at the University of Hawaiʻi until 1999. She was a pioneer in the development and use of dietary assessment methods for discovering differences among populations, such as identifying effects of the "Westernization" of Asian diets on increased risk for heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis and stroke. She is revered by food and nutrition professionals for her work in making more precise assessments of a population‘s nutritional status.
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (eatright.org) is the world's largest organization of food and nutrition professionals, representing more than 112,000 credentialed nutrition and dietetics practitioners. Since 1971, the Academy has been committed to improving the nation's health and advancing the profession of dietetics through research, education and advocacy through the academic expertise of its members and supporting the history as a food-and science-based profession.