LEARN ABOUT OUR TEAM
RESEARCH GROUP SPECIALIZING IN DIGITAL FOOD ENVIRONMENTS
Awareness,
collaboration,
capacity
OUR VISION
Our vision is to integrate digital components of the food environment into research and health practice.
OUR MISSION
Our team is dedicated to creating awareness about the impacts of digital food environments on health and nutrition, to foster collaborations, and to build research and public health capacity to address rapidly evolving and emerging challenges.
RESEACHERS
Dr. Fernandez is an Assistant Professor with the School of Nutrition Sciences at the University of Ottawa and an Adjunct Professor with the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. Her research focuses on understanding how the Internet and new technologies influence the way that consumers purchase and communicate about food. The aim of her research is to develop strategies that will support the public navigate healthy food choices in increasingly complex digital environments.
Dr. Fernandez is actively conducting research on digital food retail (i.e., online groceries, food delivery apps, and meal kits), nutrition influencers, navigating nutrition (mis)information on social media, and studying connections between food literacy, mental health, and wellbeing.
Before joining the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Ottawa, Dr. Fernandez completed CIHR Postdoctoral Fellowship with the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. Her doctoral work at Université Laval involved evaluating a national mass media campaign that promoted food skills to Canadian parents. She is a registered dietitian, the Associate Editor / French Editor of the Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice and Research, and is an active member of the Canadian Nutrition Society.
Melissa is committed to fostering collaborative and inclusive research environments and mentoring trainees to build research capacity and interest in digital food environments.
Dr. Kim Raine is Distinguished Professor in the School of Public Health, University of Alberta. She is a Registered Dietitian, and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
A pioneer in bringing social scientific concepts to the study of nutrition and health, her innovative research has shown dietary patterns as deeply contextualized behaviours embedded in complex food environments. Her research program broke new ground by exploring food environments, and how they shape the availability, affordability, and social acceptability of dietary patterns, as well as their association with health‐related outcomes.
Dr. Raine’s research led the way in demonstrating that the public’s health depends on improving food environments, making them important targets for intervention. Her research moved nutrition interventions upstream by pioneering social‐ecological thinking in nutrition, as well as demonstrating the potential of large‐scale population interventions at community and policy levels.
Dr. Raine’s team is at the leading edge of the exponential growth of research in food environments in Canada over the last decade and her team is now spearheading the development of research priorities to investigate emerging issues related to digital food environments.
CURRENT TRAINEES
Reanne Eludin
Reanne is a third-year dietetics student at the University of Alberta.
She is passionate about supporting a healthy food environment and improving access to evidence-based nutrition resources. Reanne is interested in how the online environment influences the public perception of nutrition and how digital spaces can be used to combat misinformation and improve food literacy.
Andrew Milks
Andrew is a Master's student with the School of Nutrition at the University of Ottawa.
He is passionate about health equity and improving access to science-based nutritional information. He is interested in how the social determinants of health impact nutritional status. Andrew’s thesis project is focused on understanding the effect of digital food retail on diet quality.
PAST TRAINEES
Pauline Nguyen
Dietetics student
2021-2022
Aviva Sharma
Dietetics student
2021-2022
Kelly Hoang
Dietetics student
2020-2021
Jorie Smith
Dietetics student
2020-2021
Anne Caretero
Dietetic Intern
2019-2020
Nancy Gammack
Dietetics student
2019-2020
Eyasu Jacob
WISEST summer research student
2020
Josh Karathra
WISEST summer research student
2020
Adnan Black
WISEST summer research student
2019
Jessica Dugan
Dietetics Intern
2020-2023