Kaiser Permanente Research Scientist Erica Gunderson to Deliver Department of Nutrition’s 2021 Virginia A. Beal Lecture

Erica P. Gunderson
Erica P. Gunderson

Kaiser Permanente senior research scientist Erica P. Gunderson will provide the keynote lecture, “The Pregnancy-Lactation Continuum: New Concepts for Prevention of Cardiometabolic Diseases in Women,” at the 33rd annual Virginia A. Beal Lecture on April 29 live via Zoom.

Gunderson’s lecture is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m., following the department’s annual scholarship and award ceremony beginning at 4:30 p.m. The program, which is free and open to all, will also offer one CPE hours. Guests are asked to pre-register for the Zoom link.

Gunderson studies the epidemiology of the origins of obesity and chronic diseases in women during the reproductive years as influenced by pre-pregnancy risk factor status, reproductive characteristics, pregnancy course and outcomes and lactation. She is the principal investigator of the “Study of Women, Infant Feeding and Type 2 Diabetes after Gestational Diabetes Pregnancy (SWIFT)”and the “SWIFT Study in Youth (SWIFT-Y),” two prospective follow up studies of 1,033 mother-child dyads exposed to gestational diabetes designed to determine the impact of fetal and early life factors on child obesity and metabolic health and the role of lactation in prevention of type 2 diabetes in women. These longitudinal studies are among the first to account for preconception and gestational metabolic profiles in relation to lactation and relative reduction in the risk of type 2 diabetes in women across the childbearing years.

In 1989, professor emerita Virginia A. Beal, a nutrition pioneer, established an endowment to provide students, faculty, dietetics professionals, alumni and friends with an opportunity to discuss the challenges and advances at the forefront of the nutrition field.

The Virginia A. Beal Lectureship Fund makes possible the annual celebration of nutrition research. Beal presented the first lecture in 1989. At the event, the department also presents endowed scholarships, one of which bears Beal’s name, to the department’s finest students.