News

How can engineering help advance precision nutrition?

Carolyn Slupsky, Ph.D., professor in the UC Davis Department of Nutrition, brought her expertise in nutrition and precision nutrition to this question as a member of the Engineering Research Visioning Alliance (ERVA) Thematic Task Force.

The Department of Nutrition is proud to celebrate Dr. Lauren Au, who has been selected to receive the 2026 Mary P. Huddleson Award from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation.

UC Davis Nutrition faculty and students recently gathered in Washington, D.C., for the 2026 Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB) Conference, sharing research that explored how nutrition education and behavior change intersect with culture, community, food access, systems, and policy.

This month, we are celebrating World Breastfeeding Month by sharing one student's path from bench researcher to an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.

For many graduate students, doctoral training focuses on generating new knowledge through research. But at UC Davis, students interested in maternal and child health have an opportunity to go one step further by learning how to translate that research into meaningful support for families.

The Cliff and Jane Carpenter Memorial Fellowship supports UC Davis graduate students by providing financial support during graduate training. The fellowship helps students attend and present at national/international conferences to enhance their professional development.

For Christabel Domfe, a PhD candidate in the Department of Nutrition, the fellowship supported her participation in the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) conference, where she presented her research at the intersection of nutrition and artificial intelligence.

The Mar Dissertation Year Fellowship, established by the Mar Family, supports Nutritional Biology graduate students whose research advances the excellence of the UC Davis Department of Nutrition and strengthens graduate education. Awarded in recognition of outstanding academic achievement and promise of productive scholarship, the fellowship provides students with flexibility during their last year of their PhD studies, a critical stage of their doctoral training.

The Schneeman Research and Travel Award provides UC Davis Department of Nutrition students with support to pursue research and professional development opportunities beyond the classroom and laboratory. For graduate students, travel awards can make it possible to attend conferences, present research, connect with experts and build relationships that can shape future collaborations and career opportunities.

Recent recipient, Javier Sandoval Jr., experienced that impact firsthand at NUTRITION 2026, the flagship annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition (ASN).

The UC Davis Department of Nutrition had a strong presence at Nutrition 2026, the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition (ASN), held July 25–28 in National Harbor, Maryland.

Throughout the conference, UC Davis faculty, researchers, and students presented findings across the nutrition science spectrum, including  maternal and child nutrition, global nutrition, cancer, nutrition education, healthy aging, micronutrients, and emerging technologies.

Benjamin Hurrell, Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Immunology in the Department of Nutrition at UC Davis, is the recipient of the 2026 UC Davis Early Career Faculty Award for Creativity and Innovation.

Guodong Zhang, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Nutrition and a Nutritionist in Agricultural and Environmental Science at UC Davis. He earned his Ph.D. in Food Science from University of Wisconsin-Madison, before completing three years of postdoctoral research at UC Davis where he began his extensive work in the field of fatty acid metabolism. After working as a professor for either years at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and almost two years at the National University of Singapore, he returned to Davis in 2023 to teach and conduct research in his lab.