Tashara Leak
(Jason Koski/University Photo)
Tashara M. Leak, assistant professor in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, received the Evalyn Edwards Milman BCTR Faculty Fellowship this year.
The fellowship program brings a faculty member from the College of Human Ecology into the orbit of the BCTR to help build stronger connections between research and the center’s efforts to enhance human development. Leak will hold the role through June 2023.
The grant will help support community-based interventions that aim to improve diet and health of adolescents living in low-income urban communities. Leak’s research uses multidisciplinary approaches that take into consideration the availability of healthy food, cultural food norms and social-emotional wellness among adolescents.
“I’m honored to receive this fellowship,” Leak said. “My work is not about the carrots and the apples. It’s about youth development, purpose and wellness. It’s about resiliency and helping youth build social networks. I’m excited to have the resources to develop and test interventions that make a real difference.”
Leak developed a culturally-inclusive 4-H after-school club called Advanced Cooking Education (ACE), which incorporates mindfulness, nutrition lessons, cooking and professional development for eighth graders in New York City. Her goal is to not only improve the diet and overall health of participants, but for ACE to be offered nationwide and serve as a model 4-H after-school club for culturally-diverse youth in urban communities that do not traditionally participate in 4-H programming.
Leak deserves the Milman Fellowship because her work so closely aligns with the BCTR and the Milman’s mission, BCTR Director Anthony Burrow said.
“Tashara’s intervention work inherently embodies so many wonderful elements of sound translational science, it is somewhat amazing we had not already found ways to support her through the center,” he said. “Through this fellowship, we are fortunate to be able to further leverage her research and learn directly from her as she’s conducting it. The promise of Tashara’s work for contributing in positive ways to the lives of young people resonates profoundly with the intention of this prestigious fellowship.”
Leak holds a doctorate degree in nutritional sciences from the University of Minnesota and she completed postdoctoral training in public health nutrition at the School of Public Health at the University of California-Berkeley.
