Graduate student
Michigan State University
Vanessa Cardino is a Human Nutrition Ph.D. candidate and Epidemiology Certificate student at Michigan State University. She earned her B.S. in Environmental Science in Fall 2018 from Fordham University, where she studied the relationship between lipids and white-nose syndrome in bats. In her current role, she is interested in studying the relationships between fatty acids, cognitive outcomes, and HIV status in children in low-middle-income countries. Her dissertation work focuses on the predictors of essential fatty acid deficiency (EFAD) and how EFAD is associated with executive function and scholastic outcomes in 6-18-year-old Ugandan children of varying perinatal HIV status. She was recently awarded a Research Supplement to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to support the remainder of her dissertation work. She is a member of the American Society for Nutrition, Association for Women in Science, and Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. Ms. Cardino is also involved in service work, teaching scholarship, and mentorship. She has trained visiting scientists from Uganda and is traveling to Kampala, Uganda to help build capacity for fatty acid analysis. Her ultimate goal is to become a research professor studying the role of nutrients in global child neurocognition and teaching the next generation of nutritional epidemiologists.