NutriBites is made entirely of student volunteers who write and edit because they think it’s fun!
Our Founders:
Laetitia Meyrueix, PhD is a Co-founder of NutriBites. She is a Bay Area native who moved to University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill to pursue her Ph.D. in Nutrition. She is a doctoral student of the program and studies the effect of diabetes during pregnancy on the placental epigenome. She considers herself an interdisciplinary scholar and is at her best when learning new ways to address a question. She is passionate about science communication, social justice, and reading.
Kaylee Helfrich, PhD is a Co-founder and Co-president of NutriBites. She works at a contract development and manufacturing company in Durham, NC, where she uses biochemistry to improve human health. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, dancing, and traveling. Kaylee hopes that NutriBites can help people stay informed about the latest research in nutrition and develop a greater love for nutrition!
Current Leadership:
Ashley Aguillard is the Co-President for NutriBites. Ashley is a doctoral student in Nutrition at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. She studies the role of scaffold proteins in brown adipose tissue and mitochondrial function and its impacts on whole-body metabolism. She loves music, traveling, and trying new foods. Ashley is passionate about helping people learn about science and nutrition in fun and engaging ways.
Elizabeth Grace Burgis (Liz) serves as the Grant Writing chair and
as one of the Innovation and Idea Chairs for the Nutribites team. Liz received her BS in Neuroscience at the University of California Santa Cruz, and is looking to further her education to study nutrition as preventative medicine for neurodegenerative disease. She currently works as a grant-writer for a non-profit called The Human Values Center, where she has successfully secured funding for mental health and resilience initiatives for youth in her local community and region. In her free time, she likes to paint, cook, and dance around in the mirror. Liz is passionate about making science accessible, and gathering knowledge about the connections between health, nutrition, and climate justice. Liz is excited to be part of the Nutribites team to do so in a fun and hopeful way.
Ria Khetan is the Co-Innovation and Idea Chair as well as a Co-Collaboration Chair. She is an undergraduate student majoring in Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ria is interested in pursuing an MD-PhD program and am currently involved with food allergy research. She loves to travel and has been to four continents!
Karen Hock is our Newsletter Chair and Co-Collaboration Chair. She is a PhD student in the School of
Public Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on the impact of food policies on dietary intake, and she is particularly interested in sugary drink taxes and front-of-package nutrition labels. Before returning to graduate school, she worked for over five years as a scientific writer in the health supplement industry, where she became passionate about using science communication to encourage and empower others to take charge of their health. Outside of school, she enjoys swimming, reading, hiking through nature trails, and baking (and eating) cookies.
Autumn Hullings is the Membership Training Chair for NutriBites. She is a doctoral student in the Nutrition department at UNC Chapel Hill. Her research interests include diet, metabolomics, gut microbiome, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and cancer. Prior to starting her PhD, Autumn earned her Masters in Public Health Epidemiology and worked in cancer research. She believes communication is essential for science and loves using creative ways to make science more accessible.
Core Authors and Editors:
- Anastasia Yandulskaya
- Ann Suk
- Annamaria Vesely
- Bhavya Singh
- Brittany Ingram
- Carolyn Dubnik
- Cristina Guitron
- Dominika Trzilova
- Emily Murwin
- Erin Lile
- Gabrielle Dardis
- Jason Wermers
- Jeffrey Letourneau
- Jennifer Schweiger
- Jessica Ayers
- Johanna Bishop
- Jonathan Cerna
- Kara McIver
- Matt Paysour
- Meredith Edelman
- Michaela Copp
- Raj Trikha
- Rhea Jayaswal
- Samantha Stadmiller
- Sara Bernate
- Sonia Tandon
Past Contributors:
- Allison Lacko
- Abrar Al-Shaer
- Asta Feng, MPH-RD
- Blaide Woodburn
- Daniela Pimentel, MPH-RD
- Erin Coffman
- Evan Paules
- Kristen Stockdale
- Khristopher Nicholas
- Laura Smith, PhD
- Leah Chapman, PhD
- Maribel Sierra
- Melissa Jensen, PhD
- Mike Essman, PhD
- Moira Johnson, PhD
- Natalie Rebolledo Fuentealba
- Ruixue Hou
- Yiqing Wang, PhD
NutriBites 