Areas of Expertise

• Food security

• Food and nutrition assistance use

• Social determinants of nutritional health

Food Story

López grew up in a household with low food security and limited income. While his sister and he always had food to eat, his parents regularly skipped meals. Both of his parents were undocumented immigrants at the time, and while they could not apply for SNAP, his mom was able to get food assistance from WIC. Both his sister and he are WIC babies. When López got to college, he decided to pursue a career in Community Nutrition to work toward helping build an equitable food and nutrition environment in the U.S. López hopes to be able to help strengthen food and nutrition assistance initiatives to improve the food security and nutritional health of historically marginalized communities.

Academic History

P.h.D., Social, Behavioral and Population Sciences, Tulane University, 2023

• Dissertation: Death by English: Navigating an Anglo-centered Food and Nutrition Environment as a Linguistically Isolated Latino Adult Living in the United States

M.P.H., Epidemiology, Tulane University, 2019

• Practicum: Longitudinal Association between Serum NT-proANP and Central Obesity Findings from Gusu Cohort of Chinese Adults

B.S., Nutritional Science, Texas Christian University, 2017

• Thesis: An Analysis of Metabolic Feedback to High-fat Meals of Assorted Fatty Acid Composition

Publications