GGNB Faculty 2018
New GGNB Faculty: Top Row: Jennifer Falbe, Melanie Gareau, Peng Ji, Mary Kable; Bottom Row: Danielle Lemay, Yanhong Liu, Christine McDonald, Elizabeth Prado

GGNB welcomes eight new faculty members

The Graduate Group in Nutritional Biology recently welcomed eight new faculty members to the group.

Jennifer Falbe is an assistant professor of nutrition and human development. Dr. Falbe's research focuses on studying programmatic, policy, and environmental interventions to prevent chronic disease and reduce health disparities.

Melanie Gareau is an assistant adjunct professor and researcher in the School of Veterinary Medicine (Anatomy, Physiology & Cell Biology). Dr. Gareau's research interests are 1) characterizing the microbiota-gut-brain axis in models of inflammatory bowel disease and following infection with an enteric bacterial pathogen; and 2) determining the mechanisms involved in the development of the microbiota-gut-brain axis in early life.

Peng Ji is an assistant professor from the Department of Nutrition. Dr. Ji's research involves evaluating the opportunities and the risks of nutritional factors in modulating neuronal resilience to early-life adverse events (e.g. infection and stress).

Mary Kable is a research molecular biologist from USDA WHNRC and a visiting assistant professor from the Department of Nutrition. Dr. Kable is interested in the mechanisms governing how diet impacts the bacterial composition of the human gut and how these diet-bacterial interactions can influence human health.

Danielle Lemay is a research molecular biologist from USDA WHNRC and an assistant research professor from the Genome Center.
Dr. Lemay is interested in how dietary components, especially fermentable carbohydrates, affect host response and whether that response is modulated by the functional capabilities of resident microbiota.

Yanhong Liu is an assistant professor from the Department of Animal Science. Dr. Liu's research involves evaluating dietary effects on pig health by investigating impacts of products now available to the industry and developing new approach for the industry.

Christine McDonald is an assistant visiting researcher from the Department of Nutrition. Dr. McDonald’s research is primarily based in global health nutrition with an emphasis on the design and evaluation of interventions to prevent and treat maternal and child undernutrition in resource-limited settings.

Elizabeth Prado is an assistant professor from the Department of Nutrition. Dr. Prado's research focuses on nutrition and child development. Her research interests also include caregiving, health and other influences on child development in low-resource settings, evaluating programs and policies to support children to achieve their developmental potential, and cross-cultural developmental and cognitive assessment.