2019-2020 Ada Beth Cutler Faculty Fellows
Posted in: College News and Events
Ada Beth Cutler served as the Dean of the College of Education and Human Services from 2000-2012. When she stepped down from that position and returned to faculty, her family, friends, and colleagues established the Ada Beth Cutler Faculty Fellows Program, to honor her dedication to public schools and teacher preparation and development.
The Fellowship program aims to support faculty members financially as they strive to learn and grow in their fields. Cutler Fellows will receive funding in support of projects that yield new knowledge in their fields or seek to improve pedagogical expertise.
The 2019-2020 recipients and the titles of their projects are:
- Dr. Renata Blumberg, Assistant Professor in the Nutrition and Food Studies Department, “Examining Farmer Perspectives on Direct-to-Consumer Marketing Channels”
- Dr. Lauren Dinour, Associate Professor in the Nutrition and Food Studies Department, participant in the 2020 WHO/Cochrane/Cornell Summer Institute
- Dr. Jennifer Urban, Professor in the Family Science and Human Development Department, participant in the Interamerican Leadership Training (ILT)
The goal of Dr. Blumberg’s project is to identify barriers and facilitators farmers confront in marketing through Direct-to-Consumer channels, including farmers markets. Although farmers markets are often put forth as solutions to improve fruit and vegetable access to low-income communities, existing research has shown that the distribution of farmers markets mirrors the geography of inequality in the United States, with wealthier neighborhoods having better access to local food. Her project addresses a gap in research on farmers markets, which has mainly focused on consumer perspectives.
Dr. Dinour noted that Cochrane Reviews are the gold standard of systemic reviews due to their rigor, and their findings influence international healthcare decisions, World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations, and global health policies. She will attend the 2020 WHO/Cochrane/Cornell Summer Institute so that she can learn the skills and processes necessary to conduct a Cochrane Review within the field of nutrition. Through this training process, Dr. Dinour will lead or co-lead a group of researchers to complete a systemic review for publication in the Cochrane Database of Systemic Reviews.
Dr. Urban will attend the next ILT taking place in either December 2020 or January 2021. She will observe ILT as it will provide the first-hand experience that will assist her in designing a future research study that will examine the efficacy of international youth leadership training.
As the Ada Beth Faculty Fellow Program provides opportunities for full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty, it allows our community to obtain support for projects that seek to improve the quality of work achieved in the College of Education and Human Services.