Dr. Lisa M. Troy directs the Nutrition Assessment Laboratory (NAL) in the UMass Amherst Department of Nutrition. The NAL is designed as an epidemiological suit segmented into three distinct areas.

Area 1 is a call center to collect dietary, physical activity, and health data via telephone interviews and includes four cubicles with telephones, PC computers with windows 7, internet access, and necessary software including Microsoft office, Adobe Acrobat, SAS System 9.4 for Windows and the Nutrition Data Systems for Research (NDSR) an interviewer assisted software program for collecting and analyzing dietary intake.

Area 2 is an anthropometry room to collect weight, height, and blood pressure. Body Composition (percent body fat, bone mineral density and lean body mass) are measured by Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) in a separate building on the UMass Amherst campus.

Area 3 is a fully equipped laboratory to process, store and analyze biological samples including saliva, urine, blood and plasma. For inflammation marker analysis, Dr. Troy is partial owner of and has unrestricted access to the Meso Scale Discovery (MSD-SQ120), which is housed across the hall from the NAL.