Prado appointed Assistant Professor of Nutrition & Neurodevelopment

The UC Davis Nutrition Department welcomes new faculty member, Dr. Elizabeth Prado!  Dr. Prado joins the department as an Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Neurodevelopment. 

In joining the department Prado has launched a new website for her research program, TRELLIS (Translational Research in Early Life Learning for Impact at Scale) Lab.

Says Prado, "Like a vine, children need nurturing care and strong support structures to ensure their healthy growth and development to their full potential. Parents and caregivers are the gardeners that tend and nurture the vine so that it can grow and flourish. Policies and programs, from the national to community level, are the trellis that supports the vine to grow. Our aim in the TRELLIS lab is to translate basic science into practical interventions that can benefit mothers and children worldwide."

Dr. Prado received a BA/MS from Georgetown University in Linguistics, with a focus on neurolinguistics, and a PhD in Psychology from Lancaster University, UK, with a focus on child development. She has been a Post-Doctoral Scholar and Assistant Project Scientist in the Nutrition Department and will now be working in a new position as an Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Neurodevelopment.

Dr. Prado’s research focuses on nutrition, health, and environmental influences on brain development and evaluating interventions to support children to achieve their developmental potential, including (1) the effect of nutrition on brain development in early life, (2) the effect of nutrition on cognition, mental health, and caregiving in mothers, and (3) the cross-cultural and cross-linguistic adaptation and validation of tests of motor, cognitive, and socio-emotional function in children and adults.