Professor, Epidemiology and Community Health
MPC Primary Research Areas
Biography
My research program seeks to understand the interplay of early-life factors, including prenatal and postnatal nutrition and genetics) on growth rate and body composition changes in infancy, adolescence, and adulthood. My current studies cover three major themes: 1) the developmental origins of obesity, including breast milk composition and its role in transgenerational obesity, 2) the relationship of body composition trajectories to obesity and neurocognitive development in preterm infants, and 3) molecular biomarkers obesity (telomere length attrition, DNA methylation variation).