Welcome from the Chair

Welcome

Lilian de Jonge

I am pleased to welcome you to the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at George Mason University. The diversity of George Mason’s student body presents us with a wide range of dietary backgrounds affecting our dietary choices. Our programs were built with the major nutritional challenges of today’s world in mind: the rising rates of overweight and obesity and their related comorbidities, a growing focus on sustainability and local food, an environment replete with unhealthy foods, a culture of convenience that has dented the family meal tradition, and socio-economic inequality that has left many Americans hungry. They focus on the power of prevention, and we believe that by giving students the knowledge and skills to work in those areas of nutrition, we will be helping to give tomorrow’s nutritionists the tools to improve our nutrition and food environment and ultimately prevent disease.

Our department is well-prepared to take on such complex nutrition-related challenges. We have a multidisciplinary team of faculty who come from a variety of backgrounds, including public health, medicine, epidemiology, food systems, global nutrition, and clinical nutrition. Our diverse group brings together a complementary set of skills, backgrounds, and research interests to provide enriching and exciting educational experiences for our students. Our flagship program, the MS in Nutrition, offers two concentrations.

The Community Nutrition concentration trains students to engage in nutrition and food-related planning, practice, and research to improve the food environment of individuals, communities, and populations.

The Dietetics concentration is designed to prepare students for a career in nutrition and dietetics as registered dietitians (RD). Our program blends didactic learning with supervised practice to help students meet the knowledge and skill requirements of an RD as defined by the Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics (ACEND).

I encourage you to learn more about our different programs through our website or by attending one of our information sessions. We hope to see you soon.

Lilian de Jonge, PhD
Interim Department Chair