Food Insecurity in Families with Children Integrating Research, Practice, and Policy

Barbara H. Fiese is the Pampered Chef Endowed Chair in Family Resiliency, Emerita at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She is Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, Emerita. She is considered one of the national experts on the role that shared family meals may play in promoting health. Dr. Fiese is a principal investigator or co-investigator on multiple federally funded projects aimed at examining environmental and biological factors contributing to early nutritional health. She is also the PI on several projects aimed at increasing the efficiencies of summer and after school feeding programs for food insecure children and youth.

Anna D. Johnson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Georgetown University. She co-directs Georgetown’s Child Development and Social Policy Lab and is a Research Fellow at Child Trends in Washington, DC. Dr. Johnson’s research focuses on evaluating policy solutions designed to enhance low-income children’s development and school readiness, such as publicly funded child care and prekindergarten programs. Dr. Johnson also studies food insecurity as a threat to the healthy development and school readiness of low-income children.