I am an Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics who has a deep interest in cardiometabolic risk that has been informed by both my care of patients with obesity and my research program. For nine years, I was a co-director of a large pediatric weight management program at Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland (2,400+ patients). I have board certification in both Obesity Medicine as well as Clinical Lipidology, and currently see patients at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland for prediabetes and for lipid disorders.

My current research focuses on interventions that support individuals with risk for diet-sensitive chronic disease such as diabetes. My current work centers around the following two projects:
• The ADELANTE Trial: Testing a multi-level approach for improving household food insecurity and glycemic control among Latinos with diabetes. This randomized controlled trial will evaluate the impact of food deliveries and group support on the primary outcome of HbA1c in Latinos recruited from a federally-qualified health center who have type 2 diabetes and household food insecurity. (PI Rosas/Tester, NIMHD 1R01MD016738
• Evaluating the effectiveness of a Food Prescription program in community health clinics as part of the Food as Medicine program in Alameda County called Recipe 4 Health. This is a large collaborative effort including multiple partners (HCSA, Dig Deep Farms, Open Source Wellness, Stanford University, and UCSF) in an ongoing food prescription program since 2020 that has thus far served over 3,000 patients in Alameda County.

Other recent areas of focus have included:
• Measurement dietary intake, using 24-hour diet recall data from NHANES, using Nutrition Data System for Research (NDSR) and ASA-24
• Concurrent food insecurity and obesity in children (K23 HD075852)
• Delivery interventions to increase consumption of whole grains
• Longitudinal analyses of weight trajectory among children seen for weight management

Previously, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as a Health and Society Scholar and later as a grantee with the Healthy Eating Research and Active Living Research grant mechanisms, my research focused on other things: urban food access, public health potential for improved access with healthy mobile food vending, contribution of corner stores to food environment, and neighborhoods and parks.