Almond Study

Dr. Joan Sabate is a Professor of Nutrition and Director of the Center for Nutrition, Healthy Lifestyle and Disease Prevention at Loma Linda University School of Public Health. He is the Principle Investigator of the study. He is a leading researcher in nutrition. He has several decades of experience in conducting clinical trials on the benefits of many plant foods including nuts, avocado, and soybean. He has also directed considerable research in the area of Vegetarian Nutrition in the prevention of chronic diseases and the Environmental impact of vegetarian diets. He has authored more than 150 research articles many of them in high-impact journals

Dr. Sujatha Rajaram, is a Professor of Nutrition at Loma Linda University School of Public Health. She is a Co-Investigator for the Mango Cardiometabolic Study. She has contributed significantly to the research activities at the Center for Nutrition, Healthy Lifestyle and Disease Prevention. She has served as both principal investigator and co-investigator on several clinical trials, specifically feeding studies on tree nuts, and plant omega-3 fatty acids with respect to cardiometabolic disease outcomes and healthy aging.

Dr. Ella Haddad is an Associate Professor of Nutrition and Director of the MS Nutrition program at Loma Linda University School of Public Health. She is the co-investigator of this study. She is a Registered Dietitian who managed many clinical feeding trials conducted by the team. She is also a nutritional biochemist and instrumental in facilitating the laboratory research for the studies.

Dr. Ifeanyi Nwachukwu is an Assistant Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry in the School of Public Health, Loma Linda University. He is one of the co-investigators for this study. Dr. Nwachukwu earned a PhD in Human Nutritional Sciences from the University of Manitoba and worked briefly as a postdoctoral scientist at the University of Ottawa before joining LLU. He has authored/co-authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications. His most recent works were focused on the health-promoting properties of plant food protein-derived bioactive peptides.

Amandeep Wright is a Research Manager at the Loma Linda University School of Public Health. She did her Master’s in Public Health at SPH. She has been working with the PI of the walnut study, Dr. Sabate, and the nutrition research team for the past five years. She has expertise in coordinating and managing the conduct of clinical trials. She has been involved with larger clinical trials like the Habitual Diet and Avocado Trail, which was a multi-center trial (UCLA, Tufts University, Penn State and Loma Linda University) with over a 1000 participants. She was the main coordinator for the Loma Linda site during the trial. Her role in Walnut Study will include among other things, the coordination of recruitment and selection of participants, clinic visits, and data collection and management.

Dr. Rawiwan Sirirat is a research associate at Nutrition Research Center. She is a Registered Dietitian with doctoral degree of public health in Nutrition. Her main interest is in nutrition epidemiology. Dr. Sirirat has accumulated research experience over the years via multiple clinical trials as well as a large cohort study. Her experiences include nutrition data collections, quality control of the data as well as nutrition data management. She is also well acquainted with laboratory analyses of nutrition biomarkers, bio specimen processing and handling. She will be primarily involved in data and bio specimen collection and handling in this study.

Raquel Martinez is a Registered Dietitian with a Master of Public Health in Nutrition. She is currently a Ph.D. student in nutrition at Loma Linda University's School of Public Health. One of her main interests includes evidence-based nutrition education to help foster healthy eating habits.