MCN Core Faculty and Support Staff

Faculty

Laurie Nommsen-Rivers

Laurie Nommsen-Rivers, PhD, RD, IBCLC

  • Academic Administrator
  • Adjunct Associate Professor
Dr. Nommsen-Rivers (she/her) is the director of the Maternal and Child Nutrition Master of Advanced Study program and the UC Davis Human Lactation Center. Her program of research aims to strengthen the evidence base for supporting optimal clinical management of lactating parent-infant dyads. Her current work focuses on physiologic factors that influence milk production during lactation.
 
Reina Engle-Stone

Reina Engle-Stone, Ph.D.

  • Associate Professor
  • Associate Nutritionist in AES
Dr. Engle-Stone's research is in global public health nutrition, with a focus on micronutrient nutrition among women and young children in low-income settings. Research themes include planning, monitoring, and evaluation of food fortification programs; cost-effectiveness and coherence among micronutrient intervention programs, and nutritional assessment.

 

Lauren Au

Lauren Au, Ph.D., R.D.

  • Assistant Professor
  • Assistant Nutritionist in AES
Dr. Au's research involves the assessment of dietary intakes and the food environment for the prevention of obesity in low-income, racially diverse infants and children. Her focus is on understanding how to promote healthier eating and prevent obesity in federal nutrition assistance programs, such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children and the National School Lunch Program.
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Christine Stewart

Christine P. Stewart, Ph.D.

  • Corinne L. Rustici Endowed Chair in Applied Human Nutrition
  • Professor
  • Nutritionist in AES
  • Director, Institute for Global Nutrition
Dr. Stewart’s research focuses on the design and evaluation of nutrition and health interventions for women and young children in low income communities. She examines the effects of these interventions on growth, health, and development throughout the life course. She utilizes primarily community-based randomized controlled trials, longitudinal studies, and meta-analyses to synthesize evidence to inform improvements in programs or policy. She collaborates extensively with multi-disciplinary and multi-national teams and has had recent projects in Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Bangladesh, and Ecuador.
 
Photo of Francene M. Steinberg

Francene M. Steinberg, Ph.D., R.D.

  • Professor
  • Nutritionist in AES
  • Director, Didactic Program in Dietetics
  • Corrine L. Rustici Endowed Chair in Human Nutrition

Dr. Steinberg’s research program focuses on the physiologic effects of bioactive food components to reduce risk factors for cardiovascular and obesity-related chronic diseases. Human trials and complementary research approaches are used to study metabolic markers of lipid and lipoprotein metabolism, endothelial function, inflammation and metabolic homeostasis; with a goal to examine nutritional phenotypes of individuals responding to intakes of food phytochemicals and characterize metabolic responses which promote health and chronic disease risk reduction.

Support Staff

Photo of Gaylene Catalan

Gaylene Catalan

  • MCN Graduate Program Coordinator

Email: gecatalan@ucdavis.edu

 

 

 

 

 

Founding Director

Photo of Jane Heinig

Jane Heinig, Ph.D., IBCLC (Retired)

  • Founding Director of the MCN Program and the UC Davis Human Lactation Center

Dr. Heinig founded the MCN program and was the Director, Graduate Academic Advisor and Instructor for many of the courses for the program for 20 years. As a faculty member of the Nutrition Department, she specialized in public health nutrition. She also served as the Executive Director of the Human Lactation Center, where she conducted research in the areas of clinical lactation, program evaluation, public health nutrition, nutrition education, child feeding decision-making, as well as infant nutrition and behavior. Dr. Heinig received her PhD in Nutrition Science from UC Davis and was an IBCLC of 30 years (now retired).