Graduate Student Travel Award – Personalized Nutrition Initiative

The Personalized Nutrition Initiative Graduate Student Travel Award Fund was created through a generous donation by Drs. Joshua Anthony and Tracy Gautsch Anthony. The goal is to provide opportunities for graduate students to participate (remotely or in person) in scientific conferences, workshops, or professional development activities related to personalized nutrition.

Award recipients will receive up to $1,000 deposited into their University of Illinois student account.

Spring 2025 Awardees

Benjamin Levine
PhD student in the Division of Nutritional Sciences
Advisor: Brett Loman, PhD, RD, Assistant Professor, Department of Animal Sciences, PNI Affiliate
Research area: His research investigates how dietary and psychological stress exposures shape gastrointestinal motility via host-microbe interactions.
With support from the Personalized Nutrition Initiative Travel Award, he will attend the 2025 International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) Annual Meeting in Banff, Canada. There, he will present data from a recently concluded clinical trial funded by the Personalized Nutrition Initiative. His presentation is titled, “Gastrointestinal motility responses to acute whole and refined-grain consumption are sexually dimorphic and mediate postprandial metabolism.”

Da Eun Kim
PhD student in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics
Da Eun holds an M.A. in Development Policy from the KDI School of Public Policy and Management in South Korea and a B.S. in Agricultural Economics from North Dakota State University. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked as a project associate at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Advisor: Maria Kalaitzandonakes, PhD, Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, PNI Affiliate
Research area: Her research focuses on consumer behavior and the intersection of food choice, health, and nutrition. She leverages both experimental and observational data to understand how consumers respond to emerging food innovations in a dynamic marketplace.
With support from the Personalized Nutrition Initiative Travel Award, she will attend and present at the NUTRITON 2025 conference in Orlando, Florida, in May 2025. Her poster is titled “Differentiating Added-Protein Preferences: Consumer Demand for Added-Protein Across Product Types”.

Haeley Alaina Peters
PhD student in the Department of Health and Kinesiology
Haeley, originally from Dahlgren, Illinois, is a second-year Community Health PhD student. She holds two bachelor’s degrees from Illinois: a Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Health Sciences with a concentration in Health and Diversity and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. She graduated with high honors and highest distinction. Before her graduate studies, she worked as a Certified Clinical Medical Assistant in various healthcare settings, including long-term care, plastic surgery, and fertility.
Advisor: Minakshi Raj, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor, Department of Health and Kinesiology, PNI Affiliate
Research area: She is a member of the Aging, Caregiving, and Technology Lab, with research focusing on nutrition, dietary assessment, and cultural inclusivity in healthcare. She plans to continue her research and pursue a career as a professor after graduation.
With support from the Personalized Nutrition Initiative Travel Award, she will attend and present at the NUTRITON 2025 conference in Orlando, Florida, in May 2025. Her poster is titled “Exploring Variation in Nutrition Assessment Tools Amongst Practicing Registered Dietitians”.

Rafael Guimarães
Ph.D. student in Community Health in the Department of Health and Kinesiology
He holds degrees in Nutrition and Mechatronic Engineering, an MBA in Project Management, and a master’s in Health Technologies.
Advisor: Kristen DiFilippo, PhD, RD, Teaching Assistant Professor, Department of Health & Kinesiology
Research area: His research focuses on mobile health (mHealth) technologies to support dietary behavior change and chronic disease management among food-insecure populations. He currently coordinates the Aging and Diversity Lab and conducts research in Brazil on the barriers faced by food-insecure individuals when using health apps.
With support from the Personalized Nutrition Initiative Travel Award, he will attend and present at the NUTRITON 2025 conference in Orlando, Florida, in May 2025. His poster is titled “The Role of Nutrition Apps in Improving and Managing Diabetes and Hypertension in a Food-Insecure Population in Brazil”.

Spring 2024 Awardees

Benjamin Levine
PhD student in the Division of Nutritional Sciences
Research area: Investigate how stress and diet interact with the enteric microbiota to influence communication along the gut-brain axis.
Advisor: Brett Loman, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Animal Sciences, PNI Affiliate
He attended and presented at the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements: Science of Resilience Workshop in Washington, DC in September 2024. His presentation was titled “Prebiotic dietary fibers confer resilience to psychological stress and stress-induced intestinal dysmotility”.

Ananthan Nambiar
PhD student in the Department of Bioengineering
Research area: Computational modeling focused on deep learning models for protein science, microbiomes, and genomics.
Advisor: Sergei Maslov, PhD, Professor, Department of Bioengineering, PNI Affiliate
He attended and presented at the International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology in Montreal, Canada in July 2024. His presentation was titled “MC-Funcformer: A foundational model of microbial community metabolism.”

Haeley Alaina Peters
PhD student in the Department of Health and Kinesiology
Research area: Nutritional composition of culturally tailored meals compares to American Diabetes Association guidelines and their health effects.
Advisor: Minakshi Raj, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor, Department of Health and Kinesiology, PNI Affiliate
She attended and presented at the NUTRITON 2024 conference in Chicago, Illinois in June 2024. Her presentation was titled “Culturally Tailored Dietary Recommendations for South Asians with Diabetes or Heart Disease and Their Caregivers: Findings From Two Workshops.”

Shreya Verma
PhD student in the Department of Health and Kinesiology
Research area: Building predictive machine learning models for cognitive outcome forecasting based on nutrition and physical activity data, to inform personalized behavioral interventions for improved cognitive health and well-being.
Advisor: Naiman A. Khan, PhD, RD, Associate Professor, Department of Health and Kinesiology, PNI Affiliate
She attended Machine Learning Week in Phoenix, Arizona in June 2024.

Spring 2026 Application Deadline

Submission Deadline: TBD

Award Notification: TBD

Travel Period: Travel should occur during the 12 months following award notification. Retroactive funding will NOT be considered.

Eligibility

Applicants must be registered full-time graduate students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and in good academic standing during the term the award is received, and be full-time students during the proposed travel. Students in non-degree, online, cost-recovery, and self-supporting programs are ineligible.

Application Evaluation Process

Applications will be reviewed by a committee of Personalized Nutrition Initiative affiliates and the Director will make final decisions. Applicants and their advisors will be informed of the final decisions.

Application Review Criteria

Review criteria include:

The event is relevant to personalized nutrition.
An assessment of how the proposed participation will contribute to the applicant’s professional development.

Application Materials

A complete Graduate Student Travel Award application consists of the following items:

Completed Graduate Student Travel Award Form
Applicant’s CV or resume
A brief letter of support from the applicant’s dissertation or thesis advisor

If you have any questions, please contact Anna Keck, PhD, Assistant Director of the Personalized Nutrition Initiative (akeck@illinois.edu).