DIGITAL FOOD ENVIRONMENTS - Key Persons
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.
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.
Jessica is a currently dietetic intern and also works as a research assistant with the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta.
She is passionate about food and nutrition communications and improving access to evidence-based nutrition information. Jessica is interested in how digital food environments can impact a person's perception of food and how these platforms may be used to improve food literacy. She currently sits on the University of Alberta Campus Food Bank Board of Directors.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor With the School of Nutrition Sciences
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 Ottawa. Her research focuses on understanding the impacts of digital food environments on health and nutrition with a particular interest in food literacy, eating practices, and dietary intakes. She is passionate about conducting research that aims to understand how the Internet is influencing the way that we eat and how to help the public navigate evolving digital food 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.