UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penny Kris-Etherton, Distinguished Professor of Nutrition in Penn State's College of Health and Human Development (HHD), will present the 2014 Schmitt Russell Lecture. Her presentation, “The Journey to Healthy Eating: Identifying Dietary Patterns that Reduce the Risk of Chronic Diseases,” will be held at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 30, in the Bennett Pierce Living Center, 110 Henderson Building, on the University Park campus. The event, sponsored by HHD, is free and open to the public.
Kris-Etherton's research focuses on cardiovascular nutrition. For more than 25 years, she has conducted controlled clinical nutrition studies designed to evaluate the role of diet on risk factors for cardiovascular disease. She and her colleagues have studied many different populations, including healthy people, overweight and obese people, and people at risk for cardiovascular disease. More recently, her group has examined biological mechanisms that explain the effects of diet.
In addition to her role as a Distinguished Professor of nutrition, which she has held since 1996, Kris-Etherton also has been invited to join the Science Board of the President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition. She has received numerous awards, including the David Kritchevsky Outstanding Nutrition Career Award from the American Society for Nutrition in recognition of an outstanding career in nutrition, and she is a Fellow of the American Heart Association and of the National Lipid Association. She has been a member of the Penn State faculty since 1979. She earned a bachelor’s degree in medical dietetics at the Rochester Institute of Technology, a master’s degree in nutrition at Case Western Reserve University and a doctoral degree in nutrition at the University of Minnesota.
The Schmitt Russell Research Lecture is delivered each year by the most recent recipient of the Pauline Schmitt Russell Distinguished Research Achievement Award, which recognizes the career-long research contributions of a distinguished faculty member whose research has had a profound impact on an identified field of study. The award was established by Leo P. Russell, a 1941 industrial engineering graduate, to honor his late wife, Pauline Schmitt Russell, who received her home economics degree from Penn State in 1948.
For more information visit http://www.hhd.psu.edu.