Associate Director, Center for Social & Behavioral Science
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Brenda Davis Koester is Associate Director of the Center for Social & Behavioral Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research and policy work centers around influences on children’s health including food insecurity; access to children’s feeding programs; obesity and environmental exposures. She has extensive experience in translating research into information that practitioners, policy makers, and families can implement in their own work and lives. Her work on the Child and Adult Care Food Program and Summer Food Service Program has been funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, United States Department of Agriculture, Feeding America, and the Walmart Foundation. Ms. Koester holds a Master of Science degree in from the School of Labor and Employment Relations and a Bachelor degree in Communication from the University of Illinois.