Dr. Lauren Butler is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and serves as an Assistant Professor in the Nutrition and Foods Program at Texas State University. Dr. Butler holds a doctoral degree in Nutrition from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health, where she was trained as a nutrition epidemiologist. She has extensive experience developing and conducting community-engaged research and interventions designed to eliminate health disparities. Dr. Butler’s research aims to advance social justice and health equity through weight-inclusive behavioral health interventions. She utilizes advanced statistical analyses and mixed methods approaches to inform and develop population-specific strategies to end weight stigma and disordered eating behaviors and improve cardiometabolic health among marginalized communities. Dr. Butler leads the Food Freedom Research Team, through which she mentors graduate and undergraduate students to address internal and external fatphobia, healthism, ableism, racism, weight bias, and mental health stigma. ORCID: 0000-0002-8407-7341
Dr. Cassandra M. Johnson serves as an Assistant Professor in the Nutrition and Foods Program in the School of Family and Consumer Sciences at Texas State University in San Marcos. She earned a Ph.D. in Nutrition from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health in 2017 and M.S.P.H. in Social and Behavioral Health from the Texas A&M School of Rural Public Health in 2010. Dr. Johnson’s research interests center around addressing food insecurity and achieving equity in nutrition through policies, systems, and environmental changes. She uses interdisciplinary approaches and methods in her research and focuses on historically racialized and marginalized populations, including low-income families and rural communities. Previously, Dr. Johnson has been recognized with research awards, such as being inducted into the public health honorary society of Delta Omega, named a Health Disparities Scholar from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, and receiving the Presidential Excellence Award for Scholarly/Creative Activities from Texas State University. Dr. Johnson is part of the Socioeconomic Inequalities special interest group with the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. Currently, she has active research grants from U.S.D.A. and the Department of Health and Human Services. ORCID: 0000-0002-6062-9869.
Dr. Sarah K. Bowen earned her PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2008. Currently, she serves as a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at North Carolina State University. Her research focuses on food systems, social institutions, and inequality. She uses mainly qualitative and community-based methods in her work and has conducted research in the United States, France, Mexico, and Sweden. Dr. Bowen has received funding for research projects from the USDA, NSF, and the Russell Sage Foundation. She served as PI for Voices into Action: The Families, Food, and Health Project, a longitudinal study of the broad influences related to family obesity (2012 – 2020). She is the author of two books: Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mezcal, and the Politics of Production (University of California Press, 2015) and Pressure Cooker: Why Home Cooking Won’t Solve Our Problems and What We Can Do About It (Oxford University Press, 2019), many journal articles, and public writing for national media outlets like the New York Times, The Guardian, and National Public Radio’s The Salt. Her research has been recognized with awards like the John Egerton Prize from the Southern Foodways Alliance, the University Faculty Scholar Award 2017-2022, and the 2015 Opal Mann Green Engagement Award from North Carolina State University. Dr. Bowen teaches courses related to food and food systems, inequality, migration, and advanced qualitative methods.
