The Alumni Awards at the Friedman School of Nutrition recognize and honor outstanding graduates who have made significant contributions to the field of nutrition.
These awards highlight the achievements, innovation, and impact of alumni who have excelled in areas such as research, public health, policy, community engagement, and more.
Through these awards, the Friedman School celebrates the exemplary work of its alumni in advancing nutrition science and policy and improving the health and well-being of individuals and communities worldwide.
Congratulations to this year's award recipients:
Excellence in Nutrition Award
Rebecca Seguin-Fowler, PhD, RDN, N04, NG08
Rebecca Seguin-Fowler is associate director for the Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture at Texas A&M University. As a public health scientist with expertise in community-based nutrition and physical activity intervention research, she provides leadership for the organization’s social and behavioral intervention research initiatives via the Healthy Living program. She is also chief scientific officer for the Healthy Texas Institute, professor in the Department of Nutrition in the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, and graduate faculty in the Department of Health Promotion and Community Health Sciences at the School of Public Health.
Improving community health for underserved and underrepresented populations has been at the core of her work for more than two decades. She has led widely disseminated dietary and physical activity interventions, innovative food systems intervention projects, and a variety of adapted evidence-based programs for at-risk populations. Her current research focuses on understanding how people’s social, food and physical activity environments influence behavior change and maintenance—particularly in at-risk populations and settings, such as low-income families and rural communities.
Her programs have reached nearly every state in the U.S., as well as several other countries, helping hundreds of thousands of individuals improve their health and providing critical skill-building and support to a vast range of health educators working to serve their local communities.
Leah Horowitz Humanitarian Award
Sabina Carlson Robillard, A10, N17 (posthumous)
Sabina was a doctoral student at the Friedman School of Nutrition, studying the “localization” of humanitarian assistance. She worked in disaster response, public health emergencies, peacebuilding, and conservation. Her expertise was in engagement between crisis-affected populations and humanitarian organizations. Her work included the earthquake and cholera response with IOM in Haiti, the Ebola response with IOM in Guinea, and community-driven peacebuilding efforts with Haitian organizations in gang-affected areas of Port au Prince.
She held a master’s degree in food policy and applied nutrition from the Friedman School, a master’s in community change and applied peacebuilding from the Future Generations Graduate School, and a B.A. in community health and peace and justice studies from Tufts University.
Sabina passed away on November 16, 2022, after a long battle with cancer. Learn more about Sabina’s life and career here.
Rising Star Award
Rebecca Nemec Boehm, PhD, N12, NG17
Rebecca Nemec Boehm is a Senior Economist in the Immediate Office of the Chief Economist at USDA. Her portfolio is wide-ranging, covering climate change and the environment, food insecurity and nutritional quality, competition in food and agriculture markets, among other topics. This portfolio reflects her previous research and policy experience in the academic and NGO spaces that was equally broad, as well as her varied peer-reviewed and other publications co-authored in many cases with researchers outside the field of economics.
Rebecca has a deep appreciation for high-quality, interdisciplinary research that can be used by policymakers to address the most pressing societal problems.
Rebecca received her PhD from the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and her BA from Princeton University.