Principal Investigator
Mahsa Jessri
Postdoctoral Fellows
Sappho Gilbert
Dr. Sappho Gilbert is a T32 postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Within Dr. Jessri’s NEPoH team, she serves as a collaborator and mentor on several projects in the areas of population nutrition, food policy, and community and Indigenous health (primarily focused on the Canadian Arctic). Her research portfolio also extends into food security, climate change, and research ethics. Sappho earned her PhD at the Yale School of Public Health, Master’s in Public Health at Dartmouth College, and Bachelor of Science in biology with a minor in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
PhD Students
Saba Jalali
Saba is a doctoral student in Human Nutrition at the Faculty of Land and Food Systems, the University of British Columbia under the supervision of Dr. Mahsa Jessri. Her research interests include dietary patterns, nutritional epidemiology, and disease prevention. She holds a BSc and an MSc in Nutritional Sciences from the Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Iran. Saba has 5 years of experience as a researcher at the Urology and Nephrology Research Center in Tehran, Iran.
Estimated Life Expectancy: 90 Years
Qiuyu (Julia) Chen
Julia is a Registered Dietitian and PhD Student in Human Nutrition (specializing in Nutritional Epidemiology) at the University of British Columbia. Her research interests include nutrient profiling systems, nutrition policies, disease prevention, and children’s health. She has a BSc in Food, Nutrition and Health major in Dietetics from the University of British Columbia.
Estimated Life Expectancy: 92 Years
Master’s Students
Alisha Buttar
Alisha is a graduate student in the Master’s of Science in Human Nutrition program (specialization: Nutrition Epidemiology) at the University of British Columbia. Her research interests include population health, chronic disease prevention through a dietary perspective and healthcare economics. She has a BSc in Food, Nutrition and Health major in Dietetics from the University of British Columbia.
Estimated Life Expectancy: 91 Years
Yifei (Amber) Wang
Amber is a graduate student in the Master of Science in Human Nutrition program (specialization: Nutrition Epidemiology and Data Analytics) at the University of British Columbia under the supervision of Dr. Mahsa Jessri. Her research interests include nutrition epidemiology, public health policy, population health, and healthcare expenditure. She has a Master of Science degree in Data Analytics from Tufts University.
Undergraduate Students
Abeera Irfan
Abeera is an undergraduate student pursuing a BSc in Dietetics within the Food, Nutrition and Health Program at UBC. Her current role in the lab includes assisting the algorithm-aided matching of the on-reserve food retail dataset to the Canadian Nutrient File and the USDA FoodData. Her research interests include exploring the social determinants of health in relation to nutrition outcome, pediatric malnutrition, as well as public health and policy work in relation to food security. She has been working with the lab since November 2021 and is excited to be continuing her learning in this area.
Estimated Life Expectancy: 90 Years
Dahlia Parolin
Dahlia is a research assistant pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Dietetics. She is currently involved in projects investigating the health and economic impacts of front-of-pack nutrition labels and food marketing to children. Her research interests include chronic disease prevention, nutritional epidemiology, and public health policy.
Estimated Life Expectancy: 89 Years
Claire Ma
Claire is a fourth-year undergraduate student in the Food, Nutrition and Health Program at the University of British Columbia. Her research interests include population health, the impact of children’s food consumption on health outcomes, the application of machine learning methods to population health research and data science. She worked closely with Dr. Julia, focusing on the meta-analysis of the impacts of marketing regulation of unhealthy foods and beverages on Canadian children’s dietary quality and health outcomes.
Estimated Life Expectancy: 93 Years
Ivana Abrigo
Ivana is currently an undergraduate student in Kinesiology with a Nutritional Sciences minor at the University of British Columbia. Her passion is in learning about the social determinants of health, chronic disease prevention, evidence-based policies/guidelines, and public health led her to get involved as a volunteer with NEPoH. Ivana currently supports NEPoH in a scoping review of the academic and grey literature on the impact of food labeling (front-of-pack) on healthcare costs (hospital/bed days).
Estimated Life Expectancy: 91 Years
Marcella Li
Marcella is an undergraduate student pursuing a BSc in Nutritional Science within the Food, Nutrition, and Health Program. Her research interests encompass population health, chronic disease epidemiology, nutrition policy, and diet patterns. Dedicated to improving public health through nutrition, she focuses on the role of diet in chronic disease prevention and policy formation.
Estimated Life Expectancy: 92 Years
Research Assistants
Sara Chan
Sara has a BSc. (Hons) in Food, Nutrition and Health and is a Dietetics student at UBC. Her passion is in learning about the social determinants of health, food security, and public health led her to get involved with NEPoH. Sara supports NEPoH with data validation, literature reviews, and grant applications. During her spare time, she enjoys relaxing with her dog, watching Formula One, and trying new foods.
Estimated Life Expectancy: 91 Years