Navika Gangrade, PhD, RDN is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Nutrition Program at NYU Steinhardt, Department of Nutrition and Food Studies. She earned her PhD in Nutrition and Registered Dietitian credentials (RDN) from Cornell University and her BS in Dietetics from the University of Delaware.
The overall goal of Dr. Gangrade’s research and teaching is to enhance the dietetics educational pathway to attract and retain more underrepresented trainees in dietetics, in turn creating a more diverse nutrition workforce that can target health inequities. Her current research centers on mentorship as an intervention method to improve the retention of trainees underrepresented in dietetics. Dr. Gangrade’s doctoral work at Cornell University focused on developing, implementing, and evaluating community-based interventions that empower adolescents from disinvested communities to be change agents and improve their own dietary behaviors, as well as environmental conditions that promote poor diet habits. Dr. Gangrade combines her focus on workforce diversity, experience in intervention research, and love of teaching & advising to promote a strong and diverse nutrition workforce focused on improving nutrition inequities and the systems that perpetuate them.
Prior to joining NYU, Dr. Gangrade was a postdoctoral fellow at SUNY Downstate supported by the NIMHD-funded Translational Program of Health Disparities Research Training (TRANSPORT) grant. Dr. Gangrade is also a practicing Registered Dietitian and counsels clients in their recovery from eating disorders and disordered eating.