Nutrition & Dietetics Directory

I am a professor and registered dietitian in the Department of Rehabilitation, Exercise and Nutrition Sciences at the University of Cincinnati (UC) Medical Center and have over 20 years of experience in performing observational and randomized controlled trials related to dietary approaches to manage cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in youth.  My training has included extensive work in dietary intervention development and dietary assessment at Columbia University, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and presently at UC.  I have worked on several studies developing instruments to assess the home food environment as a potential modifiable risk factor related to childhood obesity and CVD risk. For example, I participated as co-investigator on the Neighborhood Impact on Kids study (NIH R01 ES014240) to examine the relationship between the neighborhood social and physical enviornment on child weight status, a major risk factor for CVD.  I also recently completed a randomized clinical trial (NIH R01 HL088567-01) to examine the effects of a dietary pattern emphasizing fruits, vegetables, low fat dairy and lean protein on reducing blood pressure in adolescents with pre-hypertension and hypertension.  The DASH-4-teens intervention that I developed for this trial was designed to be administered by telephone to adolescents, and has been successfully implemented in a clinic-based setting.  Results from this study support beneficial effects of this behavioral nutrition intervention on blood pressure and vascular function.  In additional to reseach, I teach graduate classes in macronutrient metabolism, clinical nutrition and nutrition across the lifespan.

Seung-Yeon Lee is an Associate Professor at the Department of Rehabilitation, Exercise, and Nutrition Sciences.  She obtained her PhD in Human Nutrition at Michigan State University (MSU) and completed her post-doctoral training at MSU.  She started her faculty position at the University of Cincinnati in 2008.  She teaches two undergraduate courses (Advanced Nutrition I and Community Nutrition) and two graduate course (Nutrition Education for Behavior Change and Research Methods in Topics in Nutrition).  She has breadth and depth of experience in behavioral nutrition research, including nutrition education intervention program development nutrition and evaluation using mixed methods. Her research interests include food insecurity, health disparity, and health promotion and disease management via community-based nutrition intervention targeting underserved populations, particularly food pantry clients. In addition, she serves as the faculty advisor of UC Nutri-Ed, a student organization, which provides nutrition classes to food pantry clients. Furthermore, she has been actively involved in the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior and Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.  She served as the 2016-2017Chair for International Nutrition Education division and editorial boards of the journal between 2011 and 2017.

I earned a B.S. in Biology (Mary Washington College) and a Ph.D. in Nutrition in Sports and Chronic Disease (Virginia Tech). I joined the University of Cincinnati Faculty in 2010 after completing my post-doctoral fellowship in immunology at the Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine. I have experience in clinical and laboratory studies of human nutrition, exercise physiology, and immunology. My career objectives are to research the effect of diet on inflammation and oxidative stress in diabetes and obesity and subsequent effects on endothelial function and cardiovascular disease risk. I am specifically interested in the DASH diet as a pattern to reduce CVD risk in various populations and disease states through mechanisms including inflammation and oxidative stress. My current research studies include investigating the effects of the DASH diet on blood sugar levels in adolescents with Type 1 diabetes (as that is essential to being able to test the effects of this diet on cardiovascular parameters) and the usefulness of the DASH diet in weight management and reduction in CV risk profile in adolescents with obesity.   I also teach courses in both the graduate and undergraduate programs.  At the undergraduate level, I teach Nutrition and Exercise and Advanced Nutrition I.  At the graduate level, I teach the metabolism courses Macronutrients and Vitamins and Minerals.  
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Laurie Nommsen-Rivers, PhD, RD, IBCLC, is an Associate Professor of Nutrition, and the Ruth Rosevear Endowed Chair of Maternal and Child Nutrition, at the University of Cincinnati.Laurie is a Registered Dietitian (RD)since 1990 and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) since 1993. She served as the Associate Editor of the Journal of Human Lactation from 1997- 2006. After receiving her master’s degree in Nutrition from the University of California Davis, she spent 18 years working with hundreds of mother-infant dyads as a research associate at UC Davis.  Motivated by a desire to accelerate the evidence base for improving clinical lactation practice, Laurie returned to the University of California in 2004 to obtain a PhD in epidemiology. Between 2009 and 2016 Laurie was an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Neonatology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. She has co-authored over 70 research publications related to the breastfeeding dyad with a focus on barriers that impede lactation success. Her current work focuses on physiologic factors that influence milk production in lactating mothers.