Kita Karna is an HDFS undergraduate junior who received an IDEA grant to conceptualize and pursue a research study under the mentorship of Associate Professor Alaina Brenick. This grant will fund research exploring “Ethnic Identity Associated with Second-Generation, South Asian Young Adults” during the summer of 2021.

Ellen Pudney, MS, RDN, HDFS Graduate Student

 

Ellen is a fourth year doctoral student. She is also a registered dietitian nutritionist, with a master’s degree in Nutrition and Dietetics from Northern Illinois University, and a bachelor’s degree in Nutritional Sciences from UConn. She will be defending her dissertation, “Parental weight talk with children: The role of stigma and social position,” in February 2021 and will be graduating with her PhD in May 2021. Ellen is interested in pursuing a career in research with the hopes of improving the health of children and families.

For the past four years, Ellen has worked as a research assistant at the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity where she conducts both quantitative and qualitative research with her academic advisor, Dr. Rebecca Puhl, on topics related to weight stigma. She is particularly interested in parent-child communication about body weight, the factors that influence whether someone internalizes weight stigma, and the influence of weight-centric public health messages on families and child development. Ellen has published several peer-reviewed papers, including one, published in Pediatric Obesity that examines the associations among parental experiences and internalization of weight stigma and their engagement in weight-focused conversations and comments with children. In addition, she has presented her research at several conferences, including the National Council on Family Relations, the Society for Nutrition Education & Behavior, and the Future Directions Forum of the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology.

Prior to pursuing her PhD, Ellen was a Family and Consumer Sciences SNAP-Ed Agent for Virginia Cooperative Extension where she worked with health coalitions, community groups, and school districts to develop policy, system, and environmental changes to reduce health disparities. She is interested in addressing issues related to food insecurity and has experience working as a research assistant for the Northern Illinois Food Bank and the UConn Center for Public Health and Health Policy. Ellen also has experience working as a nutrition consultant for Head Start centers in both Illinois and Virginia.

Melissa Nowak (a junior HDFS and Psychological Sciences major) received a UConn IDEA grant for summer 2021 to support her project “Socioemotional Learning for Sandy Hook”, with faculty mentor Caitlin Lombardi.