Dr. Marie Walsh, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at Utah State University in the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences. Her research interests are in the areas of dairy protein and enzyme chemistry, immobilization technology for microbial detection and food bioprocessing and food product development. She teaches classes in Dairy Chemistry, Food Proteins, Food Enzymes, and Food Product Development.

Dr. Robert Ward is an Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Food Sciences. His research interests include potential beneficial bioactivities of the milk fat globular membrane, effects of diet on systemic lipid metabolism (including meat and milk), and small molecule metabolomics. The Ward lab is equipped with a GC-MS and GC-FID, and research activities primarily focus on measuring fatty acid from all lipid classes as well as small molecules from various biological and food matrices.

Heidi Wengreen, RD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Nutrition at Utah State University. She completed her PhD in Nutrition and Food Sciences with an emphasis in nutritional epidemiology from USU in 2002 and joined the faculty there in 2003. Dr. Wengreen’s research interests include examining associations between nutrition and health and disease across the lifespan. Dr. Wengreen has examined associations between protein intake and hip fracture and dietary patterns and cognitive decline and dementia among aging populations in Utah. She is a co-investigator of the Cache County Study on Memory, Health and Aging, a large prospective study of genetic and environmental factors associated with risk of Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementias. In addition, Dr. Wengreen has received funding from the Department of Education to improve the nutritional education and environment for children attending school in the Cache County School District. She has collaborated on the development of the Viva Vegetables! curriculum, a sensory-based food-focused curriculum used in the Cache County School district to teach children about the benefits of eating vegetables through hands on learning experiences. Dr. Wengreen is a member of the American Dietetic Association, the Society for Epidemiologic Research and the American Society of Nutrition. She has authored 7 peer-reviewed publications in the area of diet and disease.