I’m excited for a new academic year to begin! First, a welcome to all incoming students: we are so happy that you chose to come to the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. And welcome back to all of the returning students—I’m eager to see you all again. To all students, please come talk to me if you have any questions or concerns about the program or your experiences in it – don’t hesitate to send an email or stop by my office in WBOB if you see an open door. It is a pleasure to expand my faculty role in service as the director of the Community Health Promotion Program. As part of the program curriculum, I teach a course that addresses intervention approaches to weight-related health and eating disorders; this class is open to other graduate students and is a great way to have an interdisciplinary experience in the classroom. I also teach two courses on social and behavioral sciences in public health for non-CHP students. My research focuses on three primary content areas in the broader domain of weight and health-related behaviors: a) weight tracking and technology, b) weight control intervention development, and c) public health messages and health behavior recommendations. I advise students with a broad range of interests, in support of their program goals.
I am very excited to welcome you to our MPH program in Epidemiology! As Program Director my goal is to oversee an MPH program that can give you an optimal learning path for becoming an epidemiologist. I probably don’t need to convince you, but these days epi is certainly an exciting, fast-moving, and highly impactful field.
I am a social epidemiologist which means I study how policies and social structures influence health risks. Most of my research has focused on adolescents and young adults and has related to tobacco use, sleep, and weight-related behaviors. I am especially interested in discovering how policy can be optimized to promote health. I earned my PhD in epidemiology here at Minnesota in 2006, so I have some personal perspective on what it is like to be a student in our SPH!
When WBOB re-opens, please don’t hesitate to pop into my office and say hi whenever my door is open. Since communication can be difficult when we are remote, I’m hosting a program director Zoom office hour each week on Thursday 1:30-2:30pm. You can visit the office hour to ask questions about the program, introduce yourself, chat about nerdy epi things, give me a piece of your mind, just say hi, or whatever, no appointments necessary! (Link for Zoom office hour: https://umn-private.zoom.us/j/94264360447)
Looking forward to meeting you all!
As the Chair for Maternal and Child Health (MCH) masters degree program in public health (MPH), I am thrilled that you have selected to enter our MPH program here at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Our program is one of the few programs specifically focused on MCH in United States. We have a strong history of MCH research and teaching at the University of Minnesota which continues today with vibrant activities focused on advancing the health of women, children, fathers and families. We are proud to be involved with the MCH community working to promote the health and well-being of women, children, youth and families, including fathers and children with special health needs. We are committed both to the training of new leaders for MCH through our current degree programs, as well as outreach to professionals in the community who are serving MCH populations. Our Center for Leadership Education in Maternal and Child Public Health is dedicated to strengthening and expanding the MCH workforce by training graduate students in MCH, and to advance MCH science, research, practice, and policy through a well-trained MCH public health workforce. We work with a superb group of faculty, students, and MCH staff here within the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at the University of Minnesota, as well as with outstanding MCH professionals in the community–including MCH Program alumni.
Welcome Public Health Nutrition Students. I am thrilled to have such a strong and diverse cohort of PHN students in our program. It’s an exciting time to be in the field given all of the national, state, and local focus on priority nutrition topics such as food security, maternal and child nutrition, food and nutrition policy, obesity prevention, diet patterns, and the microbiome. As a graduate student in our program, you will have to opportunity to learn from faculty who are experts in public health nutrition broadly and in each of these areas. You will also work with and learn from a diverse array of alumni and preceptors who will help you develop the skills needed to become a leader in public health nutrition.
As the instructor for the Foundations of Public Health Nutrition course, I have the privilege of getting to know all of the PHN students during their first semester of the program. As the PHN Program Director, I am available to students at any time to answer questions and provide guidance. Prior to becoming a professor, I worked in both clinical and public health nutrition. This practice experience, along with many national leadership positions in the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the Commission on Dietetics Registration, and the Association of State Public Health Nutritionists, inform my teaching, research, and academic advising.
Your time in the PHN program is an opportunity to develop skills and interests in ways that you may not have thought about before. I encourage all of you to take full advantage of the many opportunities that the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and PHN program offers you. I am here to help guide you in this stage of your PHN career.
Welcome to the program! I could not be more thrilled to be the new Public Health Nutrition CMP Director! While I am new in this position, I am not new to nutrition and am excited to be able to lead each CMP cohort to an exciting and successful career in public health nutrition. As the CMP director, I am here to guide your experience. I will see you each Fall and Spring semester in a course called Independent (or Directed) Studies. There are a variety of topics covered in the 2 years but basically, this course is about professionalism in dietetics. Each of your supervised practice experiences is official courses and I lead those as well. I have many years of being a community and clinical dietitian, I have my certification in obesity and weight management and have loved practicing nutrition counseling and teaching in group settings, and communicating to the public. I have my MPH degree from SPH, standard track of Public Health Nutrition, so I know what it is like to be a student and have taken many of the courses. The enriching experiences throughout this program will help shape your future work and I get to be part of that. I look forward to meeting you!