Image
Biography
May May Leung, PhD, RDN, is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Division of Nutrition Interventions, Communication and Behavior Change at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. Her current research focuses on the design and evaluation of innovative, interdisciplinary health communication and community-based interventions to promote healthy eating and physical activity in populations who are underserved and at greatest risk for chronic diseases. Dr. Leung is principal investigator of multiple community-based research projects, including a $1.96 million grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, in which she is designing and testing an innovative family-centered mHealth tool, with the ultimate goal of informing more efficient and effective delivery, reach, and use of culturally relevant health care resources for diverse minority populations. Her work is also grounded in community-based participatory research methods, where she engages and empowers communities to have an equal partnership throughout all phases of research.
Prior to coming to Tufts, Dr. Leung was an Associate Professor of Nutrition at Hunter College and also the Research Director of the Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center, where she oversaw the Center’s research initiatives including NY20/20, a collaborative project across three academic food policy centers which examined the impact of COVID-19 on NYC’s food system. She earned her PhD in Nutrition (Intervention and Policy focus) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; an MS in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Massachusetts Amherst; and a BA in Psychology from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.