Regan Bailey, Ph.D., MPH, is a Professor of Behavioral Science and Social Medicine and Director of the Institute for Connecting Nutrition and Health at Florida State University. Before this she was a Distinguished Professor of Nutrition at Texas A&M University, where for 3 years she served  as the inaugural Director for Precision Nutrition at the Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture, and a Professor of Nutrition Science at Purdue University, where she held the title of Faculty Scholar with Showalter Distinction. While at Purdue she was the Scientific Director of the Diet Assessment Center within the Indiana Clinical and Translational Science Institute. She began her career as a civil servant at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a Nutritional Epidemiologist and Director of Career Development within the Office of Dietary Supplements. She also has clinical experience as a practicing Registered Dietitian in acute and long-term care settings. Dr. Bailey’s research program utilizes best practices for characterization of nutritional status, improvement of dietary assessment, and chronic disease risk using a life-course approach. Her research team identified nutrition risk in population subgroups including gender, sex, ancestral origin, degree of urbanicity, age, life stage, food security status, socioeconomic measures, and disease states. This research has identified the need for population-specific interventions and public health policy and supported the need for greater precision in nutrition. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, and a Fellow of the American Society for Nutrition. Her work has been funded by NIH, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She received her Ph.D. in nutrition sciences and gerontology from Penn State University and her MPH in epidemiology and public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 

Laura M. Borgelt, Pharm.D., MBA, FCCP, BCPS, is a Professor in the Departments of Clinical Pharmacy and Family Medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. She is a nationally recognized leader in women’s health with more than 25 years of experience in interdisciplinary education, clinical care, and research. As a long-standing faculty member at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Dr. Borgelt has championed patient safety, access, and quality improvement, particularly in women’s health. She has delivered more than 300 presentations, authored more than 100 publications, and mentored hundreds of students and professionals across medicine, pharmacy, nursing, and allied health. She received her B.S. in pharmacy from the University of Iowa and her Pharm.D. and Executive MBA from the University of Colorado.  

Andrew A. Bremer, M.D., Ph.D., MAS, was named Acting Director of the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in April 2025. Since September 2023, he has served as Director of the NIH Office of Nutrition Research (ONR). In this role, working collaboratively with the NIH Institutes and Centers, he works to advance and coordinate nutrition research and participate in the development of new trans-NIH funding initiatives and workshops. Dr. Bremer is committed to the mission of ONR and ODS and wants all partners to know they have an open invitation to reach out to him. He also is currently a co-executive secretary for the federal Interagency Committee on Human Nutrition Research, the NIH champion for the Global Nutrition Coordination Plan, a steering committee co-chair for the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research, and the NIH liaison to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Nutrition and Section on Obesity. As a member of the ONR Senior Leadership Group, he helped develop the 2020–2030 Strategic Plan for NIH Nutrition Research. Prior to his appointment as the ONR Director, he was the Chief of the Pediatric Growth and Nutrition Branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and held academic positions at the University of California, Davis (2007–2010) and Vanderbilt University (2010–2013). Dr. Bremer has received numerous honors, including election to the Society for Pediatric Research, multiple NIH Director’s Awards, and several teaching awards. Dr. Bremer is a board-certified internist, pediatrician, and pediatric endocrinologist. His areas of expertise include endocrine disorders, obesity, developmental origins of health and disease, and the role of nutrition in health throughout the life cycle. He received his B.S. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University; his M.A.S. in clinical research from the University of California, Davis; and his Ph.D. in pharmacology and his M.D. from Boston University. He completed his internal medicine and pediatric residencies at Baylor College of Medicine and his pediatric endocrinology fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco.

Annina Burns, Ph.D., RD, is a Registered Dietitian in the Office of Research on Women’s Health at NIH, where she uses her expertise in fertility, maternal health, and menopause to support nutrition research to improve health outcomes through the life course and prevent chronic diseases. She has practiced clinical nutrition for 12 years as a Registered Dietitian and Licensed Nutritionist and her practice includes prenatal and postpartum patients. Dr. Burns previously worked at the White House as the Associate Director for Policy on Let’s Move!, a childhood obesity prevention initiative; a Senior Advisor in the Office of the Director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and a Study Director for the Food and Nutrition Board at the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. She received her Ph.D. in public health/history from the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar.

Alexandra E. Cowan-Pyle, Ph.D., is a research faculty member in the College of Medicine’s Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine at Florida State University. Her work focuses on nutritional status assessment and how dietary exposures differentially impact population subgroups to provide more specific nutrition guidance for health promotion and chronic disease prevention. As a nutritional epidemiologist, her research is predominantly focused on assessing micronutrient exposures in relation to human health across the lifespan, improving quantitative methods of dietary assessment to optimize human health, and investigating dietary supplements. Dr. Cowan-Pyle is a member of the American Society of Nutrition and serves as an editorial board member for the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. in nutrition sciences from Purdue University and completed an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics in the Division of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and a U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture at Texas A&M University. 

Krista Crider, Ph.D., is a Health Scientist and Geneticist at the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She has designed and conducted surveillance and research projects on birth defects and biomarker surveillance. She is a subject matter expert for clinical trials and case-control studies, systematic reviews, research contracts, and cooperative agreements for studies that address genetic, environmental, and nutritional risk factors for birth defects. Her work on folate biomarkers and neural tube defects received the CDC Charles C. Shepard Science Awards for both Data Methods and Study Design and Prevention and Control. She is a member of the National Institutes of Health Dietary Supplement Research Coordinating Committee. She received her B.S. and M.A. from the College of William and Mary and her Ph.D. in genetics and molecular biology from Emory University. 

Johanna Dwyer, D.Sc., RD, is Professor of Medicine (Nutrition) and Community Health at Tufts University Medical School and the Freidman School of Nutrition and former Director of the Frances Stern Nutrition Center at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. She also is a Senior Scientist at the Jean Mayer United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Human Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University. She previously served as the Assistant Administrator for Human Nutrition at the USDA Agricultural Research Service. She served as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow in Congress in the offices of Richard Lugar (R-IND) and Barbara Mikluski (D-MD). She is a past President of the American Society for Nutrition Sciences, a past Secretary of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition, and a past President of the Society for Nutrition Education. She served on the Food and Nutrition Board for many years and is an elected member and served on the Council of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. She is a Fellow of the American Society for Nutrition Sciences and of the Society for Nutrition Education. Dr. Dwyer has received the C V Elvehjem Award for Public Service and the W O Atwater Award from the American Society for Nutrition Foundation; the Medallion Award from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics; and, most recently, the International Award from the American Dietetic Association. She is the author or coauthor of more than 310 original research articles and 280 review articles published in scientific journals on the prevention of diet-related disease in children and adolescents, maximizing quality of life and health in the elderly, vegetarian and other alternative lifestyles, nutrition in chronic disease, and nutrition policy. She received her B.S. with distinction from Cornell University, her M.S. from the University of Wisconsin, and her D.Sc. and M.Sc. from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Julia L. Finkelstein, Sc.D., SM, MPH, is Associate Professor in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell and in the Division of Epidemiology in the Department of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College; Director of the Cornell Maternal and Child Nutrition Program; co-Director of the Cornell Joan Klein Jacobs Center for Precision Nutrition and Health; and Director of the Associate Cochrane Center at Cornell. She also is the Program Director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development–funded Maternal and Child Nutrition Training Grant, the longest standing training program devoted to maternal and child nutrition in the country; the co-Leader of the clinical core for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center for Point of Care Diagnostics for Nutrition, Infection, and Cancer; and an adjunct faculty member at St. John's Research Institute at St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences in India. Dr. Finkelstein is an epidemiologist with expertise in one-carbon metabolism, preconception nutrition, maternal and child health, and the design of randomized trials and cohort studies in high-risk obstetric and pediatric populations in clinical and community settings. Her laboratory focuses on one-carbon metabolism in women’s health across the lifespan to develop interventions and clinical and World Health Organization guidelines to improve the health of women and children. Her research has been internationally recognized with awards including an NIH technology accelerator challenge prize for innovative global health diagnostics, the SUNY Chancellor Award for scholarship and creative activities, and International Life Sciences Institute Award for leadership in nutrition. Dr. Finkelstein was elected Chair of the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology B-vitamins and One-Carbon Metabolism and was awarded the inaugural American Society for Nutrition Foundation-Novo Nordisk Foundation Henrik Dam Award for Scientific Discovery in Nutrition for outstanding research contributions to the understanding of micronutrients, nutritional status, and metabolism. She received her B.S. from McGill University in Montréal, Canada; her MPH from Brown University; and her Master of Science in epidemiology and Doctor of Science in nutrition from Harvard University.

Jaime Gahche, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a Nutritional Epidemiologist and Director of the Population Studies Program in the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS). Her work focuses on assessing the use of dietary supplements in the United States and investigating the role of dietary supplements in disease prevention and health promotion, using data from health surveys and epidemiologic studies. Prior to joining ODS in 2017, Dr. Gahche worked as a Nutritional Epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics in the Division of National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES). From 2005 to 2016, she directed the effort to collect and process dietary supplement data collected in NHANES. Throughout those years, Dr. Gahche also worked closely with colleagues at ODS to characterize dietary supplement usage in the U.S. population. She received her B.S. in nutritional sciences from Cornell University, her M.P.H. from The George Washington University, and her Ph.D. in nutrition from the University of Maryland, College Park. 

Michael K. Georgieff, M.D., is the Martin Lenz Harrison Land Grant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota. He also is the Executive Vice Chair of Pediatrics and the Founder and co-Director of the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain at the University. He is an internationally recognized expert on the effects of nutrition on the developing brain, specifically the effects of iron status on learning and memory processing. His career in this area has spanned 40 years and includes investigations of brain function in humans and preclinical models. Dr. Georgieff has conducted multiple studies on the effect of fetal and neonatal iron deficiency and neonatal anemia on developing brain regions and behavior. He has been continuously funded by the NIH since 1992; has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers; and has served as a consultant for UNICEF, the India Ministry of Health, and NIH. He received his M.D. from Washington University School of Medicine. 

Elizabeth J. Johnson, Ph.D., FASN, FACN, FICS, is a nutritional biochemist with a faculty appointment at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. With  more than 35 years of experience, she specializes in nutrition and healthy aging, focusing on plant bioactives and their impact on visual and cognitive functions across the lifespan. Her research has helped advance understanding of how dietary carotenoids, such as lutein and zeaxanthin, support brain and eye health. Dr. Johnson is actively involved in several professional organizations, including the American Society of Nutrition, the American College of Nutrition, the Brain and Ocular Health Society, the Carotenoid Research Interactive Group, and the International Carotenoid Society. She has contributed extensively to her field with more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, review articles, and book chapter publications. She received her Ph.D. in nutritional biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and completed her postdoctoral research at the Jean Mayer U.S. Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Center on Aging at Tufts University. 

Bramaramba (Brama) Kowtha, MS, RDN, LDN, is a Health Scientist at the Office of Disease Prevention at the National Institutes of Health. She is responsible for promoting collaborative research projects and leading trans-NIH disease prevention efforts. Ms. Kowtha works to strengthen partnerships to advance disease prevention and lower the leading risk factors for morbidity and mortality. In addition, she contributes to efforts to identify prevention research gaps to facilitate the development of scientific initiatives, workshops, and meetings. She received her M.S. in nutrition sciences from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

Yvonne Lamers, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in Human Nutrition in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and an Investigator at the British Columbia Children’s Hospital Research Institute in Vancouver BC, Canada. Her research focuses on vitamin metabolism with the overarching goal to identify biological mechanisms linking nutrition, health, and disease and to evaluate optimal vitamin status to maintain biochemical functions. Her research on early life nutrition during pregnancy and childhood and vitamin adequacy in diverse ethnic groups and across the lifespan has been funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund. Dr. Lamers established and leads the UBC Nutritional Biomarker Laboratory that is set up with externally validated methods for blood and tissue biomarker assessment and has participated in various interlaboratory comparison studies. Her research program is directly translational and contributes new knowledge for application in clinical practice and public health for the benefit of individuals and vulnerable population groups. She was awarded the Canada Research Chair Tier 2 in Human Nutrition and Vitamin Metabolism for her internationally recognized research program. She received her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in human nutrition from the University of Bonn, Germany; completed her M.Sc. research project at the University of Otago, New Zealand; and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in nutritional biochemistry and stable isotope tracer studies at the University of Florida. 

Nicole Marshall, M.D., FACOG, is Director of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine (MFM) in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) School of Medicine. She also is a Fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, a Fellow of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, a board-certified MFM Specialist, and an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant. Dr. Marshall’s primary research focus is on the impact of maternal body composition and maternal diet on inflammation, placental function, and neonatal growth, including lactation and infant growth in the first year of life, as part of an examination of the developmental origins of health and disease. She was awarded a K23 through the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to pursue further training on the impact of maternal body composition and nutrition on placental function, fetal nutrition and growth, and lactation and has served as coinvestigator on R01, R21, and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality–funded studies. Following the 2019 Nutrition in Pregnancy International Conference in Washington, DC, she served as the lead author of the expert review titled “The importance of nutrition in pregnancy and lactation: lifelong consequences,” published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which she will highlight in her presentation. She received her M.D. from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. During her postdoctoral fellowship training, she completed a Master of Clinical Research through the OHSU Human Investigations Program and was awarded a CTSA-sponsored KL2 scholar grant to determine how to best examine maternal body composition.  

James L. Mills, M.D., MS, is a Scientist Emeritus at the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). He spent 43 years in the NIH intramural research program at NICHD before converting from Senior Investigator to Scientist Emeritus. His research areas are pregnancy and pediatric problems, and he has worked extensively on folate and neural tube defects. His work also includes effects of prenatal alcohol exposure, possible teratogenic exposures, diabetes in pregnancy, and the relationship between maternal iodine concentrations and pregnancy outcomes. Dr. Mills is a long-time member of the American Pediatric Society and the American Epidemiological Society. He has authored or co-authored more than 300 peer-reviewed papers, many of which were published in high-impact medical journals. He received his M.D. from New York Medical College and his M.S. in epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. He received his pediatric training at New York-Cornell and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia-University of Pennsylvania and his subspecialty training in pediatric endocrinology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Susan H. Mitmesser, Ph.D., is the Chief Science Officer at Pharmavite, which is a pioneer in the health and wellness industry that’s been earning the trust of consumers, healthcare professionals, and retailers for more than 50 years through its high-quality, science-backed vitamin and supplement solutions. She provides scientific leadership to advance innovation and new product development strategies, while ensuring the scientific integrity of all products made under its brand portfolio. Dr. Mitmesser holds two adjunct professor appointments in the Department of Nutrition Sciences at the University of Connecticut and in the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. She is an accomplished scientific expert with more than 20 years of extensive experience in research and nutritional biochemistry across various industries and sectors, including food, dietary supplements, academia, and clinical settings. She has a passion for nutrition and wellness and leverages her ability to communicate scientific findings to consumers and the marketplace. Dr. Mitmesser serves on the Editorial Board of four peer-reviewed journals and is well published herself, contributing to more than 50 publications and book chapters relating to nutrition in adult and pediatric populations. She received her Ph.D. in nutrition biochemistry from the University of Nebraska and her master's degree in dietetics and clinical nutrition from the University of Nebraska Medical Center. 

Kimberly O’Brien, Ph.D., is a Professor of Human Nutrition at Cornell University. Her research has centered on studies designed to better understand mineral metabolism and bone health in infants, children, and pregnant and lactating women in both developed and developing countries. Her research focuses on iron, calcium, and vitamin D physiology across gestation with a focus on determinants of nutrient utilization and partitioning between the mother and fetus. Transfer of nutrients is also addressed at the cellular level by assessing placental mineral transporters in relation to maternal and neonatal status. Her current research is focused on identifying genetic differences in iron and vitamin D absorption, the impact of iron on the gut microbiome, and investigating vitamin D kinetics during pregnancy. Dr. O’Brien’s mass spectrometry laboratory includes instrumentation for high-sensitivity mineral stable isotope analysis to facilitate studies of mineral dynamics. She received her B.S. in biology from the University of New Hampshire and her Ph.D. in nutrition from the University of Connecticut, Storrs. Her professional training included fellowships with the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Laboratory of Theoretical and Physical Biology/Section for Metabolic Analysis and Mass Spectrometry and the Children’s Nutrition Research Center in the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine.

Emily Oken, M.D., MPH, is Professor and Chair in the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. She also is Professor in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Oken’s research focuses on the influences of nutrition and other modifiable factors during pregnancy and early childhood on long-term maternal and child health, especially cardiometabolic health, cognitive development, asthma, and atopy. She also has led studies examining predictors and sequelae of maternal overweight, weight gain, and related conditions such as gestational diabetes mellitus in the peripartum period. Her work on the toxicant risks and nutrient benefits of prenatal fish consumption has influenced national and international guidelines for fish consumption during pregnancy, helping to shift the previous focus of risk-only or benefit-only studies to a broader emphasis on the overall health effects of fish consumption for mother and baby. In support of this work, Dr. Oken has led longitudinal studies commencing in the peripartum period and following mothers and children throughout childhood. She is Principal Investigator of Project Viva, a groundbreaking U.S. prebirth cohort study that has followed pregnant women and their children since 1999. She leads and collaborates on many other studies, including ECHO Boston, a cohort in the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Consortium; Programming Research in Obesity, Growth, Environment and Social Stressors in Mexico; and the Promotion of Breastfeeding Intervention Trial, a cluster-randomized trial of breastfeeding promotion in the Republic of Belarus. Dr. Oken has led efforts to develop nutrition guidelines both nationally and internationally and her commitment to research mentorship and promoting diversity has been recognized with local and national awards, including induction into the American Society for Clinical Investigation. She received her M.D. from Harvard Medical School, completed her internship and residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at the Harvard Combined Program, and completed her fellowship in general internal medicine at Harvard Medical School. She received her MPH in public health from the Harvard School of Public Health. She practiced as a primary care physician in women’s health for 15 years.

Elizabeth N. Pearce, M.D., M.Sc., is a Professor of Medicine and the Endocrine Fellowship Program Director in the Section of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Nutrition at Boston University School of Medicine. She serves as the Regional Coordinator for North America for the Iodine Global Network. She is a deputy editor at the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and has served in multiple additional editorial roles, including as an associate editor for Endocrine Practice, Clinical Thyroidology, and Thyroid. She also currently serves on a World Health Organization guideline advisory panel related to assessment of iodine nutrition. She was the 2018–2019 President of the American Thyroid Association. Dr. Pearce co-chaired the 2017 American Thyroid Association’s Thyroid in Pregnancy Guidelines Task Force and is a member of the current task force for revising that guideline. Her research interests include the sufficiency of dietary iodine in the United States, thyroid function in pregnancy, the thyroid effects of environmental disruptors, and the cardiovascular effects of subclinical thyroid dysfunction. She was the 2011 recipient of the American Thyroid Association’s Van Meter Award for outstanding contributions to research on the thyroid gland and the 2018 Women in Thyroidology Woman of the Year. She received her undergraduate degree and M.D. from Harvard Medical School and her M.Sc. in epidemiology from the Boston University School of Public Health. She completed her residency in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and her fellowship in endocrinology at Boston University.

Jill Reedy, Ph.D., MPH, RDN, is Chief of the Risk Factor Assessment Branch of the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program (EGRP) in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). She oversees EGRP’s research portfolio and initiatives that focus on diet, physical activity, and sleep methods; digital health technologies; and integration of modifiable risk factors, including obesity policy research. Her scientific interests include the assessment of dietary patterns across the life course, dietary surveillance, obesity policy, sustainability, and measures of the food environment. Dr. Reedy serves on several National Institutes of Health collaborations and working groups with other federal partners, including the Interagency Committee on Human Nutrition Research and the Data Analysis Team for the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. She is the Program Officer for the Diet Assessment Center for Nutrition for Precision Health, powered by All of Us Research Program, which focuses on improving diet assessment methodologies through validation, evaluation, and modeling efforts. She partners with colleagues at NCI, the United States Department of Agriculture, the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR), the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), and the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) to develop resources for researchers including the Dietary Assessment Primer; the NCCOR Measures Registry Resource Suite; the NCCOR Catalogue of Surveillance Systems; the WCRF/AICR Score; and the Healthy Eating Index. Prior to joining EGRP, Dr. Reedy was a Program Director and Nutritionist in DCCPS’s Applied Research Program (now the Healthcare Delivery Research Program). She first joined NCI as a Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program fellow. Dr. Reedy is a registered dietitian nutritionist and previously worked as a regional manager at the Dairy Council of California, a consultant with the California Nutrition Network, and a pediatric dietitian. She received her MPH from the University of California, Berkeley, and her Ph.D. in nutrition from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Sharon Ross, Ph.D., MPH, is a Program Official in the Pediatric Growth and Nutrition Branch in the Division of Extramural Research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Her research interests include the role of human milk components, including oligosaccharides and extracellular vesicle cargo, in infant growth and development; mechanisms linking diet and microbiome/microbial metabolites to maternal and infant health and disease; the influence of nutrition on gene regulation/epigenetics in early life outcomes and chronic disease; and relationships between diet and adiposity in child health and disease. She received her Ph.D. in nutritional sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park, and her MPH with an emphasis in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.

Katherine Sauder, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Implementation Science and Public Health Sciences at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. She studies how nutrition and other modifiable factors contribute to chronic disease in women and children. She uses observational and intervention methods to identify and test health behavior prevention strategies with potential for widespread implementation. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, and the American Diabetes Association. Her work spans the intergenerational cycle, including pregnancy, infancy, childhood, adolescence, and child-bearing years. Dr. Sauder partners with fellow researchers, staff members, clinical providers, and community representatives to identify health-related needs in under-resourced communities. Their shared vision is to break the cycle of intergenerational obesity and diabetes through improved nutrition and health behaviors during pivotal life stages. Dr. Sauder is currently evaluating sustainable programs to improve nutrition and health behaviors in American Indian children, rural-dwelling children, under-resourced pregnant women, and under-resourced women of child-bearing age. Previously she was an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Millersville University of Pennsylvania and her Ph.D. in biobehavioral health from Penn State University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in pediatric nutrition at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

Patrick J. Stover, Ph.D., is the Director of the Institute for Connecting Nutrition and Health and a Professor of Biomedical Sciences at Florida State University. As an international leader in biochemistry, agriculture, and nutrition, his research focuses on the biochemical, genetic, and epigenetic mechanisms that underlie the relationships between nutrition, food fortification, and human pathologies such as developmental anomalies, neuropathies, and cancer. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also former President of the American Society for Nutrition and has served two terms on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Food and Nutrition Board. He received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Clinton, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. Dr. Stover has more than 25 years of academic leadership experience, serving as founding Director of the Institute for Advancing Health through Agriculture at the Texas A&M University System, Vice Chancellor and Dean for Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M AgriLife, Director of Texas A&M AgriLife Research, and Director of the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University. He received his B.Sc. in chemistry from Saint Joseph’s University and his Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biophysics from the Medical College of Virginia and completed his postdoctoral studies in nutritional sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Edwina Wambogo, Ph.D., MPH, RD, joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) in January 2023 as a Nutritional Epidemiologist in the ODS Population Studies Program. Her work focuses on dietary assessment, assessing dietary patterns, child nutrition, and nutrition in aging, using data from health surveys and epidemiologic studies. Prior to joining ODS, Dr. Wambogo worked as a Nutritional Epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics in the Division of National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES). She supported external researchers using NHANES data through the revision of the NHANES Tutorials and supported the creation of the NHANES Data Visualization tool. While at CDC, she worked closely with colleagues at NIH to characterize dietary intake and dietary behaviors of the U.S. population. She received her M.S. in nutrition and dietetics from Kenyatta University and her M.P.H. in community health education and her Ph.D. in nutrition from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a registered dietitian. 

Andrea Wong, Ph.D., is the Senior Vice President of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs at the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), where her responsibilities include responding to emerging regulatory issues and advocating for science-based nutrition policy. She provides scientific expertise in evaluating research relevant to the benefits and safety of ingredients and dietary supplements. She also leads proactive self-regulatory initiatives, including the development of best practices for industry on product labeling and formulation. Dr. Wong has held several volunteer leadership positions in professional organizations, including the Institute of Food Technologists Washington, D.C. Section and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Organization Management. Prior to joining CRN in 2013, she was a senior scientific and regulatory consultant for the firm Intertek. She received her B.Sc. in life sciences from Queen’s University and her Ph.D. in toxicology from the University of Toronto. 

Steven Zeisel, M.D., Ph.D., is the Kenan Distinguished University Professor of Nutrition and Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Previously he was Director of the University of North Carolina Nutrition Research Institute (a unit focused on developing the area of precision nutrition) from 2008 to 2022 and the Director of the University of North Carolina Nutrition and Obesity Research Center (one of 12 such centers of excellence funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health) from 1995 to 2015. Earlier he was on the faculty at Boston University School of Medicine, where he rose from assistant to full Professor of Pathology and Pediatrics, and was the Chair of the Department of Nutrition from 1990 to 2005 and the Associate Dean for Research of the School of Public Health until 2007. Dr. Zeisel is a scientist and educator in the field of nutrition with more than 40 years of innovation and leadership in his discipline. He is best known for discovering that people require the nutrient choline, which is important for fetal development and liver and muscle function. This discovery led to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the European Union Food Safety Authority, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) setting recommended dietary intakes for choline. FDA also required all manufacturers of infant formulas to increase the amount of choline they add. Dr. Zeisel was the first to find that choline is needed by the stem cells that become the nerves in the brain and that low maternal intake of choline led to abnormal brain development in the baby. The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have since issued recommendations that pregnant mothers eat diets that are adequate in choline. Dr. Zeisel and his research team also discovered that people have common genetic differences that can greatly increase the amount of choline they need. He has authored more than 350 peer-reviewed scientific papers and has written many chapters in nutrition and medicine textbooks. He was President of the American Institute of Nutrition (now the American Society of Nutrition, the premier academic research society in this discipline) from 2002 to 2003. He was the editor of Frontiers in Nutrigenomics, is on the editorial board of the FASEB Journal, and was the founding editor of the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry. He received his B.S. in general biology and his Ph.D. in nutrition from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He completed his internship and residency in pediatrics at Yale.