Ruby Nguyen is the principal investigator for the University of Minnesota ECHO site. Her epidemiological research focuses on the reproductive health of both males and females, including work on couples-based exposures, problems with conception and pregnancy such as birth defects, and growth and development.

Stacey Moe is an experienced study manager with 25 years of experience managing both large-scale and small-scale research studies. She serves as the main point of contact for the study.

Pamela Carr-Manthe is an experienced coordinator with 20 years of experience working on large-scale and small-scale research studies.

Abigail Gelineau co-coordinates our data collection efforts. She is also a graduate student pursuing her MPH in Public Health Nutrition at the School of Public Health.

Lauren Lundberg co-coordinates our data collection efforts. She is also a graduate student pursuing her MPH in Community Health Promotion.

Nancy Sherwood’s research focuses on the development and evaluation of behavioral obesity prevention and treatment interventions across the lifespan with a focus on reaching engaging lower income, ethnically diverse children and their parents. A prominent theme of her work is integrating obesity treatment and prevention interventions into health care settings and creating connections between health system and community-based interventions to enhance efficacy and increase the potential for sustainability and dissemination. Additionally, she is interested in newer intervention science methodologies that improve our ability to tailor interventions in order to deliver “the right intervention to the right person at the right time.”

Melanie has worked in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health for 20 years and comes to the ECHO study with experience as a study coordinator on a wide variety of studies. Her role with ECHO study will be as clinical and biospecimen lead.

Dr. Demerath’s research is at the interface of nutrition, human biology, and child development, and seeks to understand how maternal and early-life nutritional factors alter health trajectories across the life course. Dr. Demerath’s current studies focus on maternal nutrition and gestational diabetes in shaping lactation and human milk composition; and identifying nutritional indicators of preterm infant growth that predict neurodevelopmental outcomes.