Nutrition (Graduate Field)
Field Description
Faculty in the Graduate Field of Nutrition study human nutrition at levels ranging from molecules to populations, drawing upon the chemical, biological, and social sciences to understand the complex relationships among human health, nutritional status, food and lifestyle patterns, and social and institutional environments. Understanding these relationships includes the study of the metabolic regulation and function of nutrients, nutrient requirements throughout the life span, role of diet in reducing risk of disease, nutritional quality of foods, and interventions and policies designed to promote nutritional health of individuals and populations.
In the Graduate Field of Nutrition graduate faculty research programs work at the molecular or mechanistic level, at the whole person or whole animal level, or at the community or population level, including both U.S.-focused and global-focused programs. Many of our faculty have research programs that bridge disciplinary approaches. While the graduate field has 4 concentrations, students chose a primary concentration and minor(s). The majority of the field’s faculty members are in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, but the field also comprises faculty members in other departments within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Veterinary Medicine.
Data and Statistics
Field Manual
Degree Programs
Concentrations by Subject
Nutrition
- community nutrition
- human nutrition
- international nutrition
- molecular nutrition
Faculty
- Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
- Concentrations: Nutrition: human nutrition
- Research Interests: teaches integrative health sciences and assists with preparation for professional studies and health and humanities
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: mitochondrial disease, obesity
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: micronutrients in health and disease
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: community nutrition
- Research Interests: Public Health Research, Interventions, Childhood Obesity, Health Disparities
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: obesity and diabetes with emphasis on adipose stem cell biology
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: international nutrition
- Research Interests: broad themes of sustainable agriculture, food security, health, nutrition and social inequalities, with a primary focus in southern Africa.
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: molecular and cell biology of insulin-like growth factors
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: human nutrition
- Research Interests: normative development, neurotoxicant exposure and child cognitive development, early nutritional influences on child cognition and affect
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: community nutrition; human nutrition; international nutrition
- Research Interests: nutritional epidemiology of chronic disease
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: human nutrition
- Research Interests: Her research focuses on ingestive behavior. Specifically, she is interested in how different properties of food influence what and how much we eat, and how we can manipulate these properties to benefit human health. Paige earned her BS in Psychology from Yale University where, as a member of the Yale Program for Obesity Weight and Eating Research (POWER) lead by Janet Lydecker and Carlos Grilo, she conducted research exploring eating behavior and body image in parent-child dyads.
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: biochemistry, molecular, biology, protein-protein interactions, micronutrients, DNS repair, DNA replication, metabolism
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: community nutrition
- Research Interests: childhood obesity, health disparities, social / behavioral science
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: human nutrition; international nutrition; molecular nutrition
- Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
- Concentrations: Nutrition: community nutrition
- Research Interests: food and nutrition security; rural food access; planning, implementation and evaluation of public health and community nutrition programs
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: international nutrition
- Research Interests: Her research focuses on formulating and testing solutions targeting malnutrition in all its forms in women and children. Drawing on expertise in social science approaches, combined with epidemiological and biomedical methods, she has designed and implemented randomized controlled trials and longitudinal birth cohort studies focused on the maternal-infant life cycle.
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: Dr. Yarden Golan Maor is a Research Associate in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the molecular mechanisms regulating human milk production, examining milk volume and nutrient composition's roles in infant growth and health. She investigates the genetic, metabolic, and environmental factors impacting breastfeeding to improve maternal and infant health outcomes.
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: community nutrition; international nutrition
- Research Interests: poverty, food insecurity and undernutrition, design/evolution of interventions
- Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
- Concentrations: Nutrition: international nutrition
- Research Interests: Precision nutrition, maternal child nutrition, microbiome, evidence synthesis, artificial intelligence and large language models.
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: host-microbe interactions, sphingolipid metabolism, maternal/infant nutrition
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: Research covers the following main themes:
- Molecular regulation of lipid metabolism.
- Immunometabolism, adipose tissue, and metabolic health.
- Nutritional regulation of intestinal health.
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: C. elegans, aging, insulin signaling
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: human nutrition; molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: nutritional biochemistry of selenoperoxidases; nutritional actions of bacterial phytases
- Campus: Ithaca - (Graduate School Professor)
- Concentrations: Nutrition: human nutrition
- Research Interests: nutrition and behavior; regulation of energy balance
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: human nutrition
- Research Interests: nutritional regulation of fertility; endocrinology and metabolism; polycystic ovary syndrome; ultrasonography
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: characterize the mechanisms of insulin resistance and fatty liver disease in dairy cattle and humans
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: human nutrition; international nutrition
- Research Interests: global health; human nutrition; epidemiology
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: human nutrition
- Research Interests: human nutrition, pregnancy, mineral regulation, mass spectrometry
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: community nutrition
- Research Interests: Obesity Prevention; Food Insecurity; Health Equity; Qualitative Research Methods; Food Access; Urban Agriculture; Food Assistance Programs; Community-based Participatory Research
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: international nutrition
- Research Interests: Pingali has over three decades of experience working with some of the leading international agricultural development organizations as a research economist, development practitioner and senior manager. Professor Pingali has written 10 books and over 100 referred journal articles and book chapters on food policy, technological change, productivity growth, environmental externalities, and resource management in the developing world.
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: microbiome, carbohydrate, metabolism
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: human nutrition; molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: nutrient sensing mechanism; protein homeostasis and adaptive stress response
- Campus: Ithaca - (Graduate School Professor)
- Concentrations: Nutrition: human nutrition; international nutrition
- Research Interests: maternal and child nutrition; pregnancy and lactation; human nutrition; international
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: international nutrition
- Research Interests: health economics; food and nutrition policy; economic development; poverty and inequality
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: international nutrition; molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: My team conducts multidisciplinary research that links the research fields of food science and nutrition in order to better understand how diet and physiological status affect intestinal functionality, morphology and the microbiome. We aim to better understand how diet and physiological status affect intestinal functionality, morphology, the microbiome and overall health. Beyond research, our lab is interested in training future generations of scientists and educating the public about the value of scientific research and knowledge (both basic and applied research).
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: application of proteomics, metabolomics, and bioinformatics methods to question in molecular nutrition
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: Dr. Wang's team aims to better understand how our diet and metabolism affects the level of DNA damage that can lead to cancer and ageing, and how metabolism derived DNA damage can be harnessed into novel cancer treatments.
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Nutrition: molecular nutrition
- Research Interests: Her research aims at studying the brain-body interactions that govern metabolic regulation and their implications in the context of obesity and diabetes. To achieve this goal, her research utilizes a combination of molecular and functional approaches in animal models to elucidate the neural circuits involved in metabolic regulation and to understand how they become dysregulated in the presence of disease.