Chair and Professor
Florida International University
Dr. Palacios is the Chair and a Professor in the Department of Dietetics and Nutrition of the Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work at Florida International University. She obtained her M.S., Ph.D., and post-doctoral degree in Nutritional Sciences from Purdue University. She has conducted several large federally funded randomized clinical trials in children to determine the effects of dietary supplements (calcium and vitamin D) and functional foods on bone and body composition. She has also designed and tested effective and novel lifestyle interventions for preventing excessive infant weight gain using short mobile messages, mobile Apps, and web portals. She has developed and validated food frequency questionnaires in infants and children to evaluate dietary patterns and estimate nutrient intakes. She is also studying the effects of vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy on maternal and infant health outcomes. She has extensive consultation for the World Health Organization on vitamin D, calcium, and infant feeding and she was part of the WHO/FAO task force to update the requirements for calcium, zinc, and vitamin D for infants (0-12 months) and for young children 1-3 years old. She is currently part of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. She has >100 publications in peer-reviewed journals, chapters in books, and in non-peer-reviewed journals. She is an active member of the American Society of Nutrition and the Latin-American Nutrition Society (SLAN) and the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB). She has received funding from NIH, USDA, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Children’s Trust, and Caplan Foundation for Children, among others.