Current MCN Trainees
Beatriz Carmona
Predoctoral Trainee
MCN Research Focus: Developing a Maternal Self-Care Scale
Beatriz Carmona is a second year Ph.D. Student in Community Nutrition working with Dr. Laura Bellows in the Health Behaviors Lab, as well as one of the MCN trainees this year. She finished her undergraduate degree in Nutrition/Dietetics at Auburn University in Alabama in May of 2021 and joined the Division of Nutritional Sciences that fall. She’s lived and worked in a number of different places across the US and Mexico that have all shaped her interests toward public health nutrition, and she is grateful to be able to continue cultivating these interests at Cornell. Outside of the lab, Beatriz enjoys making small crafts and exploring Ithaca’s many surrounding trails.
Françoise Cattaneo
Predoctoral Trainee
MCN Research Focus: Nutrition and metabolic health in women and their children; international Nutrition
Françoise is a PhD student in International Nutrition at Cornell University and a T32 Maternal & Child Nutrition (MCN) trainee in the Mehta Research Group. She completed her Master’s degree in Nutritional Epidemiology with a concentration in Food Systems at Wageningen University (The Netherlands, Kenya) and her Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences and International Public Health at Boston University (USA, Switzerland). She is passionate about climate-resilient interventions, such as biofortification, that address both healthier diets and planet in low-resource settings. Prior to starting her research, Françoise worked for the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) on the Innovation for Health and Planet and Knowledge Leadership teams. Her current research focuses on micronutrient deficiencies and metabolic health outcomes in women and their children in Southern India.
Lisa Larson
Predoctoral Trainee
MCN Research Focus: The role of maternal choline supplementation in infant birth and developmental outcomes.
Lisa is a former professional ballerina from Rhode Island who received her bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, in Nutrition and Dietetics from New York University. She subsequently worked on a Breast Cancer clinical trials team at Columbia University, before completing her Masters in Human Nutrition at the University of Copenhagen, in Denmark. Her work in Denmark included a partnership with WorldFish Organization, exploring small fish consumption for women and children, and sparked her initial interest in maternal and child nutrition. Now in the second year of her doctoral degree at Cornell University, her work in Dr. Barbara Strupp’s lab now focuses on maternal choline intake and its impact both on the immune system during pregnancy and on offspring cognition.
Erin Sley
Postdoctoral Trainee
MCN Research Focus: Periconceptional nutrition, perinatal epidemiology, international nutrition
Erin Sley is the NICHD T32 postdoctoral fellow for the MCN training grant. She recently graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a MPH in maternal and child health and a doctorate in epidemiology. Her dissertation assessed modifiable risk factors for orofacial clefts with an emphasis on prenatal dietary patterns and Hispanic individuals. As a postdoctoral fellow in the Finkelstein Lab, Dr. Sley is conducting research on the role of periconceptional nutritional status in the etiology of health outcomes in women and their children, as part of a population-based CDC periconceptional surveillance program and randomized trial in Southern India.