MCN: Faculty and Staff

Dr. Au's research is at the intersection of innovative dietary assessment, nutrition policy, and obesity prevention for low-income populations. Her work focuses on harnessing artificial intelligence to improve dietary assessment technology and examining how cross-utilization of safety net programs impacts nutrition security and health. She has a wealth of experience with evaluating nutrition policy changes in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children and the National School Lunch Program.

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.

Dr. Fetter teaches Nutrition 10V and Nutrition 10, in addition to conducting research on education and pedagogy. She is passionate about helping people, especially with guiding students to make healthier nutrition and lifestyle choices. She also aspires to help bridge the gap between the science community and general public through teaching and writing about nutrition in an engaging and relatable way.

Dr. Mackenzie´s research focuses on the role of diet and other lifestyle factors in cancer development, prevention and treatment. Current research projects include: 1) Understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in the link between obesity, inflammation and cancer; 2) Evaluating the impact of dietary interventions, such as the ketogenic diet, alongside standard-of-care chemotherapy as a novel treatment for pancreatic cancer; and 3) Investigating the use of select nutraceuticals as potential chemopreventive agents.

Building on her extensive experience in maternal and child nutrition and dietetics, Dr. Nichols conducts interdisciplinary women’s health research in two primary areas at the intersection of dietetics, reproductive epidemiology, and cardiometabolic health. First, she investigates the nutritional, biological, and social aspects of the preconception period through the first 1000 days with a translational emphasis on modifiable determinants that affect the lifecourse. Second, leveraging longitudinal data, Dr. Nichols examines sex as a biological variable and the extent to which reproductive risk factors (e.g., infertility, pregnancy loss, reproductive senescence) are associated with body composition, cardiometabolic health, and the origins of disease among female individuals in midlife.

Dr. Smilowitz has a well-established research career investigating the role of diet on the gut microbiome across the lifespan, with a particular focus on clinical nutrition and lactation during the first 1,000 days—from pregnancy through early childhood. As a Cooperative Extension Specialist with a background in lactation education, she leads collaborative, community-engaged outreach programs that support infant feeding and deliver evidence-based education on lactation and breastfeeding. Through integrated research and extension efforts, her work addresses critical gaps in health, strengthens community capacity, and advances strategies to reduce chronic disease risk.

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.

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.

Ms. Frank's work focuses on curriculum design, outcomes assessment, and management practice in dietetics.

Dr. Hall's research focuses on the assessment of zinc nutritional status and its relationship to health through the life course. Dr. Hall’s interests include the development of novel biomarkers of zinc-dependent functions, and the application of zinc tracer methodologies towards the determination of dietary zinc absorption and cellular utilization.

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.