Sarah Wen attended the UConn Coordinated Dietetics Program, an accelerated program that provided internships consisting of clinical, foodservice, community nutrition, specialty, and research rotations. Sarah Wen graduated Magna Cum Laude and received her Bachelor of Science in Dietetics in 2019.
Shortly after graduating, Sarah Wen became a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN). That summer, she worked as a research technician for Dr. Christopher Blesso from the UConn Nutritional Sciences Department. In this role, she helped with mouse colitis studies and conducted polymerase chain reactions (PCR), among other tasks. In fall 2019, Sarah Wen started new research with Dr. Blesso, focusing on the effects of milk polar lipids (MPLs) on lipid and blood-related parameters such as VLDL, LDL and HDL Cholesterol levels. During her 2-year master’s program, she helped run a MPL clinical study and was the sole RDN for a plant-based clinical study, both within the UConn Nutritional Sciences Department. In addition to coursework and research, Sarah Wen completed a capstone project, The Effects of Dairy Product Consumption on Cardiovascular Disease. In addition, she co-authored a paper, Milk Polar Lipids: Underappreciated Lipids with Emerging Health Benefits, published in Nutrients. Furthermore, Sarah Wen received the Eastern States Exposition Graduate Student Scholarship in fall 2019.
While working on her master’s capstone project, Sarah Wen interned with the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity under the supervision of Dr. Marlene Schwartz. During this internship, she worked on a project on the summer meal programs in CT, funded by the CT Department of Education. Sarah Wen participated in qualitative data collection that included individual interviews and off-site visits. Additionally, she worked with Dr. Caitlin Caspi from Allied Health Sciences on a Supporting Wellness at Pantries (SWAP) project. SWAP is a stoplight nutrition ranking system that assigns foods as red, yellow, or green depending on saturated fat, sodium, and sugar content, and was specifically designed for use within charitable food systems such as food pantries, to better rank overall food quality. Furthermore, Sarah Wen contributed to a National Institute of Health abstract regarding SWAP research.
Sarah Wen received a master’s in Nutritional Science in 2021 and then joined the HDFS program to work with Dr. Kim Gans. Sarah Wen’s current work focuses on qualitative and quantitative research to inform the design and evaluation of community nutrition interventions that target families and youth in settings like childcare and dental practices. These interventions help improve social and physical environments that influence children’s eating behaviors to prevent obesity, improve health and wellness, and reduce health disparities.
Sarah Wen is very excited to be a part of the HDFS PhD program and begin mixed methods research in community nutrition interventions!