Amy Nichols was awarded the 2019 Jean Hankin Nutritional Epidemiology Research Grant from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation. This $20,000 grant is awarded to provide financial support to a doctoral student working on a dissertation in the area of nutritional epidemiology. This grant will support Amy’s research focusing on maternal nutrition during pregnancy in women with twins and higher order multiple gestations.

Amy also was awarded a $5,000 American Society for Nutrition Predoctoral Fellowship, which recognizes the excellence of her dissertation research.

Congratulations, Amy!

At ASN 2018, Dr. Widen presented a poster entitled “Classifying pregnancy weight gain trajectories in African American and Dominican Women from Northern Manhattan and the South Bronx.”  This analysis introduced Dr. Widen’s use of semi-parametric modeling for pregnancy weight gain trajectories as a means of more accurately tracking and examining weight gain patterns.  Unlike prior models, which rely on linear weight gain estimates, this method of analysis can be used to assess patterns of weight gain longitudinally over pregnancy, which provides a more nuanced perspective on changes in body composition. Ultimately this method of modeling may be used to identify determinants of specific pregnancy and health outcomes, and serve as a foundation for the development of targeted clinical recommendations.