Daiva Nielsen, PhD
Assistant Professor
School of Human Nutrition                                                                      
McGill University

Dr. Daiva Nielsen is an Assistant Professor and William Dawson Scholar in the School of Human Nutrition at McGill University. She is also the Scientific Director of the Clinical Nutrition Research Unit at McGill University. Her research program evaluates gene-environment interactions on nutrition and health outcomes, with a focus on neurobehavioural aspects of eating including food reward and sensory perception. Dr. Nielsen’s lab was the first to geotemporally link population biobank data with retail food environment data to study relationships between the retail food environment, nutrition, genetics, and health. Her lab also engages in knowledge translation activities to advance nutrition research and practice, such as through the application of machine learning to organize large-scale dietary intake data and use of clinical genetic testing for personalized nutrition. Her research has been funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, New Frontiers in Research Fund, Fonds de recherche du Québec, and the Banting Research Foundation.