Dr. Lauren Au is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutrition at UC Davis. Dr. Au brings a wealth of experience in conducting nutrition evaluations to prevent obesity in low-income community settings. Notably her research in WIC includes a rigorous assessment of online vs. in-person nutrition education; creating a novel diet quality measure for infants; and
Dr. Jonathan L. Blitstein is a public health psychologist and research methodologist with 15 years of experience in the design and evaluation of community-based, health promotion projects. His research focuses on understanding the role of social and structural determinants of health and is aimed at reducing the impact of chronic disease among vulnerable populations. Dr. Blitstein has provided evaluation technical assistance to community organizations
Sheryl Cates is Senior Research Policy Analyst at RTI. Ms. Cates has more than 20 years of experience managing projects to provide support for developing food safety and nutrition policy. She specializes in health communication, program evaluation, and survey research methods. Projects have included evaluating nutrition education for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and
Ken Chui is a methodologist interested in research design, data analysis, and visualization. Since 2009, he has been participating in the design and analysis of various research projects including evaluation of physical activity and nutrition interventions for children, examination of epidemics in the US including opioid overdoses and hepatitis C infections, and testing the effectiveness
Dr. Christina Economos is a Professor, the New Balance Chair in Childhood Nutrition, and Chair of the Division of Nutrition Interventions, Communication, & Behavior Change at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and Tufts Medical School. She is also co-Founder and Director of ChildObesity180 where she develops, implements, evaluates, and scales high-impact obesity
Dr. Gualtieri, PhD, ScM, is an Assistant Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, where she is currently teaching Digital Health in the Health Informatics and Analytics program. She conducts research on the use of wearable activity trackers with underserved populations; the integration of tracker data into clinical care;
As Executive Director of the Center for Applied Research in Telehealth, it is the goal of ATA to effectively work with their members and partners to advance a research strategy that supports health policy improvement and improves overall health. As Co-Project Director for the WIC cooperative agreement on behalf of ATA, she is looking forward
Dr. Wilde is a Professor at the Friedman School and author of the textbook Food Policy in the United States: An Introduction (second edition) (Earthscan/Routledge, 2018). His general research focus is on U.S. food and nutrition policy; consumer economics and federal food assistance programs. Current and past research includes an evaluation of the effects of WIC package changes
Dr. Zhang is an Associate Professor in the School of Community and Environmental Health at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. As a health and behavioral economist, he focuses on WIC-related technology and behavioral research, including cash value voucher redemption, breastfeeding, and evaluation in the WIC program. He is the PI or Co-PI on multiple WIC
