Author Archives: mzn69

After obtaining her PhD in May 2022, Nan has started her new journal as a postdoctoral scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Congratulations and best luck to the new adventure, Nan!

Congratulations to Kiara Smith for successfully defending her master’s thesis on food insecurity and academic performances in college students.

In her independent research, Kiara designed her own study, collected primary data, and analyzed data under the guidance of Nan Dou (many thanks, Nan!).

We expect to polish the writing in the coming months and aim to publish her work in the future.

Many congratulations, Kiara!

Many congratulations to Sara Jimenez Rincon who got the 2022 Erickson Discovery Grant to support her honor’s thesis research. 

The highly competitive university-level grant will be used to support Sara’s proposed research focusing on the “The Role of Physical Activity on the Relationship Between Food Insecurity and Anxiety Among College Students, Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic”.

Three manuscripts have been recently accepted at the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Frontiers in Nutrition, and Nutrition Journal. Sara Jimenez Rincon, an undergraduate researcher in the Na Lab, and Nan Dou, the PhD student, are leading two of the three projects as first/ co-first authors. Congratulations, team Na Lab!

Dr. Na’s global nutrition collaborative work with Dr. Stephen Kodish has been selected for recognition with the 2022 Advancing a Global Penn State Outstanding International Research Award. Congratulations, Dr. Na!

Nan has successfully defended her doctoral thesis, entitled “Food Insecurity and Mental Health among Vulnerable Populations”. Nan joined the Na Lab since 2018 as the very first PhD student. She has published 5 peer-reviewed journal articles and presented her work at multiple international conferences. She has won multiple awards during her study here at Penn State, including four finalist nominations for four ASN awards, the John A. Milner Endowment for graduate research, and Ruth L. Pike Fellowship. Many congratulations, Dr. Dou!

Penn State Today reported the background and key findings from our regional analysis of complementary feeding practices in the West and Central African region (WCAR). What a nice way to conclude the project! We want to thank the department chair, Dr. Cathy Ross, and UNICEF-WCAR for their support in the newsletter article. We also thank Aaron Wagner for taking the time to write the nice story.

Dr. Na and Ms. Vonda Ramp, at the Child Nutrition Program at the Pennsylvania Department of Education were invited by the Evidence-to-Impact Podcast to share some thoughts about the food insecurity crisis within the COVID-19 crisis. To list to the full episode, click the link here.

SSRI announced today to fund Dr. Na (PI)’s Smart and Connect Health project, which will apply smart phone modules to study the relationship between food insecurity and cognitive change in older adults. The project will be carried out between May 2021 to December 2022. Drs. Jonathan G. Hakun, Martin J. Sliwinski, and Runze Li are the Co-Is of the project.

The Schreyer Honors College has funded Kiara’s thesis grant application in the amount of $700. Congratulations, Kiara!