Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition
Extension
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1571
Spotlight
Leslie Cunningham-Sabo, Ph.D., R.D.
April-June 2007
Vol 29, Issue 2
Go to Table of Contents for this issue
Leslie Cunningham-Sabo earned her M.S. in Human Nutrition from the University of Arizona in 1989, and her Ph.D. in Health Education (emphasizing Health Promotion) from the University of New Mexico in 2000. She has been a Registered Dietitian since 1989. She worked for sixteen years in the University of New Mexico's Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, where she served in various research capacities including project coordinator, research nutritionist, and principal investigator. In January 2007 she joined the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition (FSHN) at Colorado State University as an Assistant Professor.
Her research focuses on developing, implementing, and evaluating community-based nutrition programs for children and adults, with an emphasis on rural and American Indian communities. A more recent interest has been to develop and test measures of food choice and related factors (self-efficacy, neophobia, attitudes) among low-income, urban Hispanic and Anglo schoolchildren. She also has extensive experience conducting community-based trials (e.g., in schools), including the five-site, seven-tribal nation Pathways obesity prevention program funded through the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Other federally-funded research projects emphasized the prevention of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. An over-arching focus for all her work has been to employ Community-Based Participatory Research approaches, including investigating the dissemination and utilization of prevention research in public health settings. Dr. Cunningham-Sabo says she is delighted to join the FSHN Department, where she will conduct research and teach undergraduate- and graduate-level nutrition courses. She adds that she is looking forward to learning from and collaborating with her new colleagues.
On a personal note, Dr. Cunningham-Sabo has been married to Mark for 25 years, and they have two sons - Christopher, age 21, who is an education student at the University of New Mexico, and Tyler, age 17, who is a junior at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins. She ends by saying, "We are anticipating many happy and productive years in Fort Collins. Go Rams!"
Go to Table of Contents for this issue
|
