I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics Nutrition at the Baylor College of Medicine / USDA ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center in Houston, TX. My research focuses on culinary medicine and the home food environment, specifically in the context of disease prevention in traditionally underserved communities. The long-term goal of my research is to understand and improve population diet, mitigate energy balance disorders and reduce nutrition-related disease incidence through novel surveillance tools and interventions. My extensive public health, nutrition, and culinary training provide me with a unique perspective and strong motivation to intensively explore this growing area of research. I have over 10 years of experience in the food industry and completed the Diplôme de Cuisine at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in London, UK. My predoctoral training was in the Department of Pediatrics Research at MDACC, where my work focused on the nutritional needs of childhood cancer survivors and developing novel methods for assessing home cooking behaviors among parents of patients. I completed an Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, which included teaching cooking classes to diverse communities over the course of one year. In total, I taught participatory cooking classes to over 1,000 individuals, working closely with traditionally underserved communities (including women exiting the prison system, supportive housing residents, and immigrant communities at high risk of colorectal cancer) to develop tailored culinary education content. My postdoctoral training was in the Department of Behavioral Science at MDACC, where I refined a measure of healthy cooking practices using a citizen scientist approach and examined the utility of the measure for culinary intervention evaluation. My current research focuses on the development of intuitive, user-centered digital culinary interventions to improve diet quality among traditionally underserved populations.