SPHHP faculty member to be inducted as American Society for Nutrition Foundation Fellow

By TERRA OSTERLING

Since 1928, ASN members have built on nutrition science-based information and practice, provided education and professional development and science policy and advocacy. The society’s highest honor recognizes Freudenheim’s distinguished career in advancing the field of nutrition and improving health around the world. 

“The fellows of ASN are an enormously distinguished group of nutrition scientists. It is an honor to be included in that group,” Freudenheim said.

With training in both nutrition and cancer epidemiology, Freudenheim’s research focuses on the epidemiology of diet, alcohol and other exposures in relation to cancer risk, particularly breast cancer. Using epidemiologic tools, Freudenheim’s research seeks to understand carcinogenesis at the population, individual, tissue and molecular levels to better prevent and control disease risk and progression.

Freudenheim also studies connections between exposure to carcinogens early in life and cancer in adulthood. She has led interdisciplinary teams working to better understand the causes of breast cancer by examining genetic factors, the microbiome and other molecular markers of exposure.

Freudenheim has served as chair of the Molecular Epidemiology Group of the American Association for Cancer Research and on the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Cancer Institute. She is an adjunct professor of oncology at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and affiliated scientist at UB's Clinical and Research Institute on Addictions. In 2020, she received the Abraham Lilienfeld Award from the American Public Health Association Epidemiology Section for excellence in teaching epidemiology over the course of a career. She worked as a hospital and community nutritionist before returning to school for her doctorate in nutritional sciences and has been a member of the ASN for her entire post-doctorate career.

The ASN Class of 2023 Fellows will be inducted in Boston in July at the Society’s Nutrition 2023 annual meeting.