@ the Center for Health Inclusion, Research and Practice (CHIRP)

Our Team
Post-Doctoral Fellows
Deborah A. Olarte, PhD, RDN, MS
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Dr. Deborah A. Olarte is a Registered Dietitian and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Health Inclusion Research and Practice (CHIRP) at Merrimack College. Dr. Olarte received her MS in Nutrition and Public Health from Columbia University and her PhD in Behavioral Nutrition from Columbia University. She is the NOPREN School Wellness Workgroup Fellow and the 2022-23 APHA Food and Nutrition Section Fellow. Her research goals include improving students’ nutrition and overall health through school wellness and increasing the role teachers play in school meals. Her current research focuses on universal free school meals in California and Maine and the de-implementation of universal free school meals in Anchorage, Alaska.

Leah Chapman, PhD, MPH
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Dr. Leah Chapman is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Health Inclusion Research and Practice (CHIRP) at Merrimack College. Dr. Chapman recently completed her PhD in Nutrition at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her dissertation examined the impacts of a city-wide, policy-mandated minimum wage increase on various health outcomes, including diet, food insecurity, and stress. Leah also completed her MPH at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2016 and her bachelors degree at the University of Florida in 2011. Her research interests include the nutritional causes of obesity, dietary assessment methods, and the design and evaluation of community-based nutrition intervention trials.

Mentorship
The NOURISH Lab is committed to mentoring undergraduate and graduate students, as well as post-doctoral fellows interested in studying children's nutrition, health behaviors, and/ food policies. Students interested in learning about directed studies, fellowships, or paid opportunities to get involved in the NOURISH Lab should email Dr. Juliana Cohen at Cohenj@merrimack.edu

