Finkelstein Lab

Erin Sley, PhD MPH

Erin is the NICHD T32 postdoctoral fellow for the Maternal and Child Nutrition training grant. She recently graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a MPH in maternal and child health and a doctorate in epidemiology. Her dissertation assessed modifiable risk factors for orofacial clefts with an emphasis on prenatal dietary patterns and Hispanic individuals. Erin now works in the Finkelstein Lab and is broadly interested in prenatal nutritional interventions and birth outcomes.  

Dripta Roy Choudhury, PhD

Dripta is a Post Doctoral Associate in the Finkelstein group. She completed her Master degree in Food and Nutrition at University of Calcutta, India. She pursured her PhD in Nutrition Science at ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad, India. She also worked as consultant in UNICEF-Hyderaabd and Institutional Post-Doctoral Fellow at IIT-Bombay, Mumbai, India. 

She is a public health nutrition researcher having about 14 years of experience on maternal, child and adolescent nutrition. Her primary research interests are iron nutrition, exploring role of micronutrients in anemia prevalence, studies on food-based approach to improve nutritional status and gut microbiome. She is expert in designing, conducting and monitoring nutrition surveillance and community-based RCTs among vulnerable population in rural India. She is presently working as co-investigator in the Periconceptional Surveillance 2.0 and QFS Trial. Moving forward, she hopes to be involved in evidence-based public health nutrition policy framework with an emphasis in India. 

Doreen Larvie, PhD RD

Dr. Doreen Larvie earned a BSc Dietetics degree from the University of Ghana, where she trained as a Dietitian. She continued to the University of North Carolina Greensboro for her MSc and PhD in Human Nutrition. As a Dietitian with extensive exposure in clinical, community, and corporate settings, Dr. Larvie is always looking for ways to translate her experiences in understanding the mechanistic role of micronutrients in low-grade inflammation, a key precursor to chronic disease development. Her prior work published in high impact nutrition journals has focused on the impact of dietary approaches and micronutrients including phytate, zinc, iron, and selenium in obesity, anemia of inflammation, and COVID-19. Another focus of her research involved employing complex survey techniques and large data sets such as the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, to better understand how phytochemicals and trace metals may impact health outcomes including cognitive function.  

Dr. Larvie’s current research focuses primarily on long-term outcomes in the context of maternal and child health utilizing population-based surveillance in resource-limited settings. She is interested in the role of nutrients such as iron, vitamin B12, folate, and vitamin A, in metabolic function in children, adolescents and women of reproductive age. Dr. Larvie is also involved in the synthesis and translation of current evidence to inform nutrition and health policy on iron, vitamin B12, and precision nutrition in obesity, in maternal and child health. Inflammation can lead to perturbations in the microbiota and influence disease progression; thus, Dr. Larvie is looking forward to pivoting her research to study dietary components, chronic inflammation, and the microbiome with a precision nutrition lens.