Faculty

Faculty

Katie Adams

Katie Adams, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Project Scientist, Department of Nutrition
As an applied microeconomist, Dr. Adams’ research interests are at the intersection of economics and maternal and early childhood nutrition. Her current research is focused on the development of methods and tools to help low- and middle-income countries (1) use secondary data to estimate food and nutrient intake, (2) evaluate the cost and cost-effectiveness of alternative micronutrient interventions, and (3) identify economically optimal micronutrient intervention programs.
Lindsay Allen

Lindsay H. Allen, Ph.D.

  • Research Professor, Department of Nutrition
  • Director, USDA ARS Western Human Nutrition Research Center
Dr. Allen is the Director of the USDA ARS Western Human Nutrition Research Center (WHNRC). Her research is focused on the prevalence, causes, consequences and prevention of micronutrient deficiencies including iron, vitamin B-12, zinc, vitamin A and riboflavin.
122 WHNRC
Jay Belsky

Jay Belsky, Ph.D.

  • Robert M. and Natalie Reid Dorn Professor of Human Development
Dr. Belsky investigates the psychological, behavioral and health consequences of supportive and adverse experiences in infancy, childhood and adolescence, working from an evolutionary, life-history perspective.
Kenneth Brown

Kenneth H. Brown, M.D.

  • Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Nutrition
Dr. Brown conducts research on the epidemiology, treatment, and prevention of childhood malnutrition in lower-income countries, including evaluation of large-scale intervention programs. Research themes include infant and young child feeding (breast feeding and complementary feeding), relationships between infection and nutrition, and control of specific micronutrient deficiencies, with particular focus on vitamin A, zinc, and iron.
3139 Meyer
David Bunn, Professional Picture

David Bunn, Ph.D.

  • Director, Environmental Science & Policy
  • Adjunct Asst. Professor of Animal
Prior to his current appointment, David served as Director of the California Department of Conservation from 2015 to 2019. Dr. Bunn also served the State as Deputy Director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife and as a natural resources policy consultant for the State Senate and Assembly. Since 2006, Dr. Bunn was a co-leader of the Global Livestock CRSP and USAID Flu School Program -- conducting avian flu workshops in eight African countries for health and agriculture ministry professionals. He also co-developed the Poultry Health for Development Program. David was a project director and researcher at the One Health Institute in the School of Veterinary Medicine, where his work included directing international research projects and training programs in West and East Africa and in Nepal.
Michael Carter

Michael R. Carter, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Agricultural and Resource Economics
  • Director, BASIS Assets & Market Access Innovation Lab
Research interests: Dr. Carter's research focuses on small farm development strategies, including asset transfer and financial market deepening programs. His current research projects concern poverty dynamics and productive social safety nets, the impact of violence on aspirations and hope, evaluation of interventions to boost small farm uptake of improved technologies and feature a suite of projects that design, pilot and evaluate index insurance contracts as mechanisms to alleviate chronic poverty and deepen agricultural and rural financial markets.
2103 Social Sciences & Humanities
Kathryn Dewey

Kathryn G. Dewey, Ph.D.

  • Distinguished Professor Emerita, Department of Nutrition
Dr. Dewey's research area is community and international nutrition, with an emphasis on maternal and child nutrition. Dr. Dewey was the Director of the Program in International & Community Nutrition from 2007 – 2018.
3253C Meyer
Reina Engle-Stone Professional Photo

Reina Engle-Stone, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Professor, Department of Nutrition
Dr. Engle-Stone's research is in global public health nutrition, with a focus on micronutrient nutrition among women and young children in low-income settings. Research themes include planning, monitoring, and evaluation of food fortification programs; cost-effectiveness and coherence among micronutrient intervention programs, and nutritional assessment.
3253A Meyer
Lia Fernald

Lia C.H. Fernald, Ph.D.

  • Associate Professor, Public Health Nutrition, Community Health & Human Development
Dr. Fernald’s research program is focused on two related issues examining the intersection of socio-economic status and health in the context of the developing world: how inequalities in socio-economic status contribute to physical and mental health outcomes in children and adults and how large-scale interventions can address socio-economic disparities in health and nutrition.
UC Berkeley
Sonja Hess

Sonja Y. Hess, Ph.D.

  • Research Nutritionist, Department of Nutrition
Dr. Hess’ research interests involve the design, implementation and evaluation of programs to control micronutrient deficiencies among children and women in low-income countries, and related issues of nutrient bioavailability, nutrient-nutrient interactions and nutritional assessment. The research program is generally carried out in the context of community-based intervention trials, using an efficacy or effectiveness study design.
3147 Meyer
Leah Hibel

Leah Hibel, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies
Dr. Hibel's research interests include mother-child relationships and physiological regulation; family stress/parenting stress and stress physiology; the transaction among family stress, family relationships, and stress physiology; lactation physiology
Janet King

Janet C. King, Ph.D., R.D.

  • Research Professor Emerita, Department of Nutrition
  • USDA ARS Western Human Nutrition Research Center Scientist
Using stable isotopes and kinetic modeling techniques, Dr. King's research group studies how calcium and zinc utilization is affected by different physiological states, such as pregnancy, lactation, aging, or insufficient or excessive intakes
Kevin Laugero

Kevin D. Laugero, Ph.D.

  • Associate Adjunct Professor, Department of Nutrition
  • USDA ARS Western Human Nutrition Research Center Scientist
  • Stress Biology and Nutrition Research Lab - Western Human Nutrition Research Center
Dr. Laugero's research interests include nutritional and metabolic regulation of stress system responsiveness and impact on prevention and management of chronic disease across the life span
Stress Biology and Nutrition Research Lab, USDA WHNRC
Marta Loan

Marta Van Loan, Ph.D.

  • Associate Adjunct Professor, Department of Nutrition
  • USDA ARS Western Human Nutrition Research Center Scientist
Dr. Van Loan's research has a dual focus. 1) To determine how soy isoflavones may reduce bone loss in early postmenopausal women not taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and thereby be a natural alternative to HRT. 2) To determine the effect of different diets and eating patterns on body composition, weight and fat loss, and bone metabolism.
202 WHNRC
Travis Lybbert

Travis J. Lybbert, Ph.D.

  • Associate Professor, Agricultural & Resource Economics
As an applied economist, Dr. Lybbert’s research focuses on the microeconomics of development, risk and technology diffusion. This core focus encompasses four primary areas in applied microeconomics: poverty dynamics and vulnerability; rural economic development; risk and uncertainty; and technology adoption and innovation policy.
2155 SSH
Christine McDonald

Christine M. McDonald, ScD

  • Assistant Professor, UCSF Dept. of Pediatrics
  • Assistant Visiting Researcher, Department of Nutrition
Design and evaluation of interventions to prevent and treat maternal and child undernutrition in low- and middle income countries; child growth and development; zinc deficiency; environmental enteric dysfunction; nutritional epidemiology
Elizabeth Prado

Elizabeth Prado, Ph.D

  • Assistant Professor, Department of Nutrition
Dr. Prado's research interests include the effect of nutrition on brain development in children; the effect of nutrition on cognition, mood, and caregiving in mothers; and the cross-cultural and cross-linguistic adaptation and validation of tests of motor, cognitive, and socio-emotional function in children and adults.
3243 Meyer
Christine Stewart, professional photo

Christine P. Stewart, Ph.D.

  • Corinne L. Rustici Endowed Chair in Applied Human Nutrition
  • Associate Professor of Nutrition
  • Associate Nutritionist in the Agricultural Experiment Station
  • Director, Institute for Global Nutrition
Dr. Stewart’s research focuses on the design and evaluation of nutrition and health interventions for women and young children in low income communities. She examines the effects of these interventions on growth, health, and development throughout the life course. She utilizes primarily community-based randomized controlled trials, longitudinal studies, and meta-analyses to synthesize evidence to inform improvements in programs or policy.
3253B Meyer
Steve Vosti

Stephen A. Vosti, Ph.D.

  • Associate Adjunct Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics
Research interests: tropical deforestation, economic development, effects of policy action on human welfare, poverty-environment links, population-environment links, climate-poverty links, bioeconomic models, environmental economics, and biodiversity policy.
2135 Social Sciences & Humanities
Carrie Waterman

Carrie Waterman, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Researcher, Department of Nutrition
Dr. Waterman's research focuses on natural products and nutraceuticals for improved nutrition, health, and income generation in developing countries. She works with bioactive isothiocyanates and olyphenols from Moringa oleifera for treating chronic inflammation and factors of metabolic syndrome.
K. Ryan Wessell

K. Ryan Wessells, Ph.D

  • Assistant Project Scientist, Department of Nutrition
Dr. Wessells’ research focuses on micronutrient deficiency among young children and women of reproductive age in low-income countries, and the evaluation of therapeutic and preventive interventions designed to improve nutritional status in these populations. Her areas of interest include zinc, the biochemical assessment of nutritional status, environmental enteric dysfunction and the use of stable isotopes to assess mineral absorption.
3147 Meyer

Emeriti

Louis Grivetti

Louis E. Grivetti, Ph.D.

  • Professor Emeritus, Department of Nutrition
Dr. Grivetti blends classical approaches of social and biological sciences with historical perspectives. The unifying theme of his research is how, why, and under what conditions human diets change, the mechanisms of change, and the nutritional implications of human behavior.
Charles Halsted

Charles H. Halsted, Ph.D.

  • Professor Emeritus of Internal Medicine and Nutrition
Dr. Halsted’s research studies focus on the interactions of folate deficiency and abnormal methionine metabolism in the development of alcoholic liver disease. Studies include animal models and clinical patients.
6323 Genome and Biomedical Sciences Facility

In Memoriam

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Ernesto Pollitt, Ph.D.

  • Professor Emeritus, Department of Pediatrics
Dr. Pollitt's research focused on nutrition and behavioral development; functional consequences of early supplementary feeding in nutritionally at-risk populations; long-term functional consequences of intrauterine growth retardation; effects of iron deficiency and helminthic infections on cognition and school performance; national policies regarding growth monitoring and breastfeeding promotion
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Fernando E. Viteri, M.D., D.Sc.Med

  • Professor Emeritus of Internal Medicine and Nutrition
Dr. Viteri's research interests included providing the scientific bases for possible interventions aimed at preventing and correcting human iron deficiency and other nutrient deficiencies that are responsible for nutritional anemias and other related conditions.