About the Faculty Authors

Christina Stark, M.S., R.D., C.D.N.
Extension Associate

I am the Program Leader for Cornell NutritionWorks, an online professional development program at www.nutritionworks.cornell.edu. This website provides continuing education opportunities, such as this course, for nutrition and health professionals working in communities. I oversee the content of the website, which includes many additional topics related to obesity, as well as other current food and nutrition issues such as dietary guidelines, trans fatty acids, and genetically engineered foods. For over 25 years, I've been responsible for interpreting and communicating research-based information on food and nutrition issues to extension educators, other nutrition professionals, consumers and the media. My most recent interests include providing continuing professional education for nutrition and health professionals using distance technology.

 

Wendy Wolfe, Ph.D.
Research Associate

For the past 15 years I have conducted research in the areas of childhood obesity, child nutrition and the elementary school environment, food insecurity, community-based nutrition monitoring, postpartum weight retention, and dietary methodology. In my current position, I provide research-based technical assistance and training on childhood obesity prevention to Cornell Cooperative Extension educators and other professionals, including ways to improve the school nutrition and physical activity environment. As a member of the Cornell NutritionWorks team, I'm interested in using the website as a way to reach more professionals interested in childhood obesity prevention.

 

Carol Devine, Ph.D., R.D.
Associate Professor

As a nutrition researcher and the extension leader for the Division of Nutritional Sciences, I see Cornell NutritionWorks as a great way to make the results of nutrition research available in a convenient and timely way to community nutrition professionals. For example, the focus of my research is on women's health and nutrition. Our life-course approach to understanding how food choice patterns or trajectories develop and change over a woman's lifetime can be used in nutrition practice to improve the tailoring and targeting of interventions. Our research on people's strategies for managing the multiple demands of work and family life provides clues for the discovery of ways to improve eating environments and to help people make food choices in those environments to prevent weight gain.

 

Jamie S. Dollahite, Ph.D., R.D.
Associate Professor

As director of the Food and Nutrition Education in Communities programs at Cornell University, I work closely with Cooperative Extension educators managing the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP), the Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program, and the Farmers' Market Nutrition Program. I understand the need that educators working in these programs have for up-to-date, research-based information to guide their work, and I work to meet this need as a member of the Cornell NutritionWorks team. My academic interests focus on theory and methods of nutrition education for limited resource individuals and families that facilitate effective, efficient, and equitable programs. We are currently investigating innovative methods of preventing childhood overweight using a community-based, collaborative approach.

 

Christine M. Olson, Ph.D., R.D.
Professor

The nutritional concerns of women, infants, and children are the focus of my scholarly work. Our group is studying how recommendations for weight gain during pregnancy and selected health behaviors (eating, physical activity, and breastfeeding) relate to the development of obesity in childbearing women. We recently completed an intervention study demonstrating that by promoting appropriate weight gain in pregnancy, postpartum weight retention is decreased in low-income women. In addition, our research group is measuring the changes in food insecurity across time in rural low-income families. Both projects are motivated by a concern for improving the nutritional well-being of populations using well-designed interventions.

 

Meredith Graham
Program Assistant

I am the Program Assistant for Cornell NutritionWorks. I assist in program development and management, contribute to content of program resources, and support program development and delivery. As the administrator for Cornell NutritionWorks, I handle membership and billing issues, maintain and update the website, and provide general assistance. I am concurrently a graduate student in Community Nutrition and my research interests relate to community-based nutrition interventions and policies that affect low-income populations.

 

 

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