Nutritional Sciences Faculty Profiles
Along with providing education and training, the Department of Nutritional Sciences faculty and researchers have achieved national and international reputations for excellence in their respective fields of research and expertise. Short summaries of faculty are detailed below.
Department Chair
Karen E. Peterson, ScD
Nutrition: Biosocial and environmental determinants of intergenerational patterns
of growth and metabolic syndrome risk in mothers and children, design and evaluation
of population-based obesity interventions in low-income, multi-ethnic populations.
Core Faculty
Olivia Anderson, PhD, RD
Developing, implementing, and assessing pedagogy that creates an engaged learning
environment for the Nutritional Sciences students; early-life environmental exposures
and the impact they have on metabolism and the epigenome.
Ana Baylin, MD, Dr.PH
Nutritional epidemiology, cardiovascular disease, obesity, metabolic syndrome, genetic
epidemiology, global health
Katherine W. Bauer, PhD
Social and behavioral determinants of youth obesity, parenting and family influences
on children's obesogenic behavior and weight status, family-based obesity prevention.
Dave Bridges, PhD
How metabolic regulation is changed with obesity and how that affects cellular metabolism;
mTORC1 signaling and the connections between intracellular and extracellular signaling
pathways.
Dana Dolinoy, PhD
The Dolinoy lab investigates environmental epigenetics & epigenomics in relation to
the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD), and the role of diet and
nutrition in modulating chemical exposure (e.g. bisphenol A, phthalates, mercury,
and lead) through epigenetic mechanisms including DNA methylation and chromatin structure.
Erica Jansen, PhD
Nutritional epidemiology with a focus on diet and sleep in relation to pediatric health.
Andy Jones, PhD
Sustainable food systems, healthy diets, climate change, agricultural biodiversity.
Cindy Leung, ScD
Diet and health disparities in structurally marginalized populations; mechanisms underlying
food insecurity and children's risk of obesity; stress and eating behavior; federal
food programs; diet and cellular aging; quantitative and qualitative research methodology.
Peter Mancuso, PhD
Inflammation and infection of the lung, arachidonic acid metabolism in alveolar macrophages
and neutrophils, role of eicosanoids in pulmonary host defense, malnutrition, host
defense mechanisms in bacterial pneumonia, leptin and immune function.
Karen E. Peterson, ScD
Nutrition: Biosocial and environmental determinants of intergenerational patterns
of growth and metabolic syndrome risk in mothers and children, design and evaluation
of population-based obesity interventions in low-income, multi-ethnic populations.
Edward Ruiz-Narvaez, ScD
Genetic epidemiology. Interaction of genetic, nutritional, and social factors in relation
to obesity and type 2 diabetes. Health disparities. Early-life determinants of human
health.
Young Ah Seo, PhD
Roles of iron and manganese in health and disease including gut, metabolic, and neurological
disorders.
Kendrin Sonneville, ScD, RD
Eating disorders prevention, weight-inclusive public health, weight perception, weight
stigma, nutrition counseling, adolescent health.
Faculty with Joint Appointments
Metabolic syndromes, insulin resistance, type II diabetes
William Chey, MD
Dietary interventions for functional bowel disorders, creating novel health information
technology platforms to improve implementation of evidence-based diet interventions
in clinical practice; use of big data sets to understand the association between diet
and GI diseases.
Justin Colacino, PhD
Environmental and dietary factors in carcinogenesis and cancer prevention, environmental
dysregulation of stem cell biology in breast cancer, racial disparities in breast
cancer, environmental epigenetics, nutrient-toxicant and toxicant-toxicant interactions
Galit Levi Dunietz, PhD
Sleep, perinatal epidemiology and women’s health
Zora Djuric, PhD
Diet and cancer prevention.
Brigid Gregg, MD
Neonatal/childhood determinants of pancreatic beta-cell mass, Stimulus to burst of
postnatal beta-cell replication, Perinatal programming of adult metabolic disease,
Nutritional alterations during the lactation period and lactational programming of
metabolic disease.
Rebecca Hasson, PhD
Dr. Hasson is an Associate Professor in the Schools of Kinesiology and Public Health
and Director of the Childhood Disparities Research Laboratory at U-M.
Joyce Lee, MD, MPH
Clinical care of children with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes; epidemiology of diabetes
and obesity in children; health outcomes and quality of life for children with diabetes;
long-term endocrine consequences of childhood obesity.
Julie Carroll Lumeng, MD
Childhood obesity, parenting and obesity, stress-eating in children, and community-based
obesity prevention programs.
Amy Rothberg, MD, PhD
Pathogenesis of obesity; weight regulation; interventions in the management of obesity
(particularly intensive behavioral therapy); pharmacotherapy for weight management;
behavioral economics.
Laura S. Rozek, PhD
Population based studies focusing on the epigenetic, environmental and genetic risk
factors that contribute to the development of human cancer; specifically head and
neck and colorectal cancers. Gene-environment and epigenetic-environment contributions
to the risk of human chronic diseases.
Randy J. Seeley, PhD
Hypothalamic and G.I. peptides and their associated receptors that influence both
energy intake as well as peripheral metabolic processes, with a focus on developing
new treatment strategies for both obesity and diabetes.
Julia A. Wolfson, PhD, MPP
Food policy; obesity and diet-related disease prevention; school and community food
environments; firearm policy and gun violence prevention
Suzanna M. Zick, ND, MPH
Impact of diet quality on late-term effects such as fatigue and chronic pain as well
as quality of life in cancer patients; diet quality in pre-autoimmunity and lupus;
The use of dietary supplements in oncology patients and survivors; integrative medicine.
Lecturers and Adjunct Faculty
Susan Aaronson, MA, RD
School- and community-based pediatric obesity prevention
Sarah Ball, MPH, RD 
Suzanne M. Cole, PhD
Infant and child nutrition, food choices and feeding behavior, diet and epigenetics
Rachel Davis, PhD
Design and evaluation of individually tailored dietary interventions, methodological
issues in health surveys, role of cultural factors in health communications.
Adrienne Ettinger, ScD, MPH, MS
Effects of environmental exposures on reproductive, perinatal, and children's health
Lisa Hammer, MD, IBCLC
Developing, implementing, and assessing breastfeeding clinical programs that offer
breastfeeding education, support, and medical management in an integrated model of
care. Development and assessment of breastfeeding simulation model to improve breastfeeding
knowledge among health care providers.
Elizabeth Hudson, MPH, RD
Medical nutrition therapy for children and adult patients with non-IgE mediated food
allergies.
Patricia Ramos, MPH, RD
"Greening" of food service departments and developing programs to reduce operational
food waste.
Darleen Sandoval, PhD
Brain and gut communication to regulate glucose and lipid metabolism and how this
system becomes dysregulated with obesity.
Wei Perng, PhD
Use of epidemiologic methods to investigate relations of the perinatal period with
future obesity and related metabolic consequences; elucidating biological mechanisms
that underlie accrual of excess adiposity during early life.
Emeritus Faculty
Craig Harris, PhD
Mammalian developmental toxicology and biochemical and molecular mechanisms of birth
defects: Research objectives focus on chemical alteration of redox environment/signaling,
embryonic nutrition, and their impact on epigenetic control of gene expression.