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Biography
Dr. Mei Chung is an expert in systematic reviews and evidence‑based nutrition, bringing more than a decade of experience conducting large‑scale evidence syntheses that inform major U.S. and global health policies. Her work has shaped clinical guidelines, federal coverage decisions, and national recommendations—including the Dietary Reference Intakes and Dietary Guidelines for Americans—while advancing methodological innovation in nutrition epidemiology and evidence synthesis.
She is also a nutrition epidemiologist and biostatistician with more than 20 years of experience leading evidence synthesis to support guideline and policy development. Her expertise spans statistical modeling—including mixed‑effects and multilevel approaches for complex study designs—comprehensive evidence reviews, and the development of analytic tools used by multidisciplinary teams and federal partners. She has authored more than 200 peer‑reviewed publications and collaborates widely with academic, nonprofit, and governmental organizations in the U.S. and abroad.
Dr. Chung is lead author or co-author of more than 40 evidence reports (i.e., large, complex systematic reviews). Throughout her work, her analyses have informed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s clinical guidelines; coverage decisions for Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act; and nutrition recommendations, such as the Dietary Reference Intake values and Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
More recently, Dr. Chung received funding from the World Health Organization (WHO) to conduct scoping reviews and subsequent systematic reviews to support the work of updating the Food and Agriculture Organization/WHO nutrient requirements for children aged 0 – 36 months. Dr. Chung also has expertise in developing new methods and adapting existing methods of evidence synthesis and stakeholder engagement in research to facilitate the translation of evidence to policy.
Dr. Chung has expanded her research to include microbiome and DNA methylation data in collaboration with colleagues at the School of Medicine. Both DNA methylation and microbiome data are high-dimensional data that need to be processed using special computation methods to reduce the dimension before statistical analyses. Her long-term research goal in this area is to develop new analytic methods and approach to integrating microbiome and DNA methylation data in nutrition epidemiological research.