Cristina Palacios is the new chair of the Department of Dietetics and Nutrition. She has also been promoted to professor of dietetics and nutrition.
As chair, Palacios will focus her efforts on instruction, research, and service. In addition to providing direction to the department, Palacios will be point for mentoring junior faculty, supervising faculty and staff, maintaining accreditation standards, and more.
Palacios graduated with her doctoral degree in nutrition from Purdue University in 2001. She also received her post-doctoral training there under the mentorship of Connie M. Weaver.
Since then, she’s had an exciting career, from working with the World Health Organization as a consultant to joining our Stempel College as an associate professor in 2017. She has conducted several trials in adolescents and adults to determine the effects of dietary supplements and functional foods on bone and body composition.
Her research is currently focused on studying the role of diet and physical activity on obesity and weight gain in infants, children, adolescents, and pregnant women. She has been funded by NIH, USDA, RCMI and RTRN, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
She is an active member of the American Society of Nutrition and the Latin-American Nutrition Society (SLAN). In addition, she is a consultant for the Pan-American Health Organization in infant nutrition.