Palacios, Cristina Graduate Faculty

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biography

  • Dr. Cristina Palacios is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Dietetics & Nutrition at Stempel College of Public Health. She completed her M.S, PhD, and postdoc in Nutritional Sciences from Purdue University. She has conducted several NIH-funded randomized clinical trials in children, adolescents, and adults to determine the effects of dietary supplements and functional foods on bone and body composition. She has also received funding to test interventions using technology for preventing excessive weight gain in infants, college students, and pregnant women, which are the moments in life for greater weight gain. She has mentored more than 80 individuals in research and has more than 160 publications. She has extensive consultation for the World Health Organization in establishing vitamin D supplementation and calcium guidelines, infant nutrition requirements for calcium and vitamin D, and in guidelines for managing childhood obesity. She was part of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee for the US, in which she chaired the “Strategies for Individuals and Families Related to Diet Quality and Weight Management” subcommittee. She has received a few awards, including the Excellence in Nutrition Fellows 2025 from the American Society for Nutrition, the FIU HFA Contribution to Hispanic Community 2024 award, Top Scholar FIU 2020, the Mid-Career Award of the Nutrition Education and Behavioral Science from the American Society of Nutrition, among others. She has been funded by NIH, USDA, RCMI and RTRN, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

research interests

  • Dr. Palacios primary research focus in designing nutrition interventions for obesity preventions using technology, primarily during the years of rapid weight gain (infancy and college years). She also studies the effects of functional foods, dietary supplements, dietary patterns, including intake of ultra-processed snacks, on bone and body composition. She has developed and validated methods to assess diet and body composition.

selected scholarly works & creative activities

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full name

  • Cristina Palacios

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publication subject areas

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