Advisory Board and Editors Nutrition
Charles Odilichukwu R Okpala
Charles Odilichukwu R. Okpala is a Certified Food Scientist (CFS) - International Food Science Certification Commission (IFSCC-USA), Chartered Scientist (CSci) of the Science Council-UK, Fellow - Linnaean Society of London (FLS), Fellow - Institute of Food Science and Technology (FIFST-UK), Member - International Association of Food Protection (MIAFP-USA), Member - Institution of Agricultural Engineers (MIAgrE-UK), Professional Engineer (PEng-UK), Member - The Federalist Society (USA), among others. Charles' first college education was in Statistics and Computer Applications (CertDiplom, 2002) at the University of Nigeria Nsukka - Nigeria, followed by Agriculture (B.Sc. Hons, 2008) at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi-Ghana. Subsequently, he underwent specialist food science research training (Master of Research [MRES], 2010) at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow-UK, and during that period, undertook chemical engineering training under the European Federation of Chemical Engineers at Koc Universitesi-Istanbul, Turkey(Intensive Lifelong Learning Diploma - Chemical Engineering with distinction, 2009). He recently accomplished an advanced specialist food nutrition technology research training at Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences(UPWr), Wrocław-Poland (Dyplom Doktorski, Ph.D., 2023). He holds an excess of 75 other credentials, for example, Diplomas in Legal Studies, Social Work Studies, Psychology, Workplace Safety & Health, as well as certifications like FSPCA Preventive Controls for Human Food(USA); HACCP Meat & Poultry(USA); HACCP Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Packinghouse(USA); ServSafe® Instructor/Registered Examination Proctor(National Restaurant Association-USA); ServSafe® Food Protection Manager(National Restaurant Association-USA); Produce Safety Alliance (PSA) Train-the-Trainer (Association of Food and Drug Officials, USA); etc. Currently, he is a County Extension Agent at Assistant Professor cadre (Family & Consumer Science) - University of Georgia Cooperative Extension (Richmond County Office), College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Georgia- Athens, USA, and before, Research Scholar - Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Sciences, Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Wrocław-Poland. Previously held at other notable institutions include Research Fellow at IRBIM CNR (previously known as IAMC CNR) Mazara del Vallo, Trapani-Italy (2015-2016), and Research Scholar (School of Science, 2011-2013)/Research Associate (Global Public Health Unit, 2012-2013) at Monash University Sunway Campus, Malaysia. Adding to being an Extension Educator and Subject Matter Specialist, he freely lends his expertise as an Independent Academic-Research Practice Consultant, Lead Internal Quality Assurer, and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Practitioner, among others. He has over 150 scholarly works in very promising ISI impact factor journals, with over 3000 Google Scholar citations, and over h-index of 25. In addition to being an academic/associate editor with some Scopus-indexed journals, he also serves as a scientific reviewer for over 45 others. He delivered posters/presentations at regional/state/international conferences/seminars. Adding to being a proud Strathclyder, Charles' interests include the following: utilization of animal products in sustainable global food systems; family consumer sciences/extension services; agri-food processing/production/quality; consumer safety/food protection; foodservice industries and their personnel development; environmental public health/epidemiology; qualitative and quantitative research methods; quality management of agrifood products/socio-related aspects of foods. Most essentially, Charles trusts Almighty God to lead him in academic, administrative, and vocational endeavors. Additionally, he is extremely passionate and zealous about ensuring colleagues/students, and community members strive to achieve, excel, and succeed.
Patrícia Padilha
Prof. Patrícia Padilha holds a PhD in Nutritional Sciences from the Josué de Castro Nutrition Institute (INJC) of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), where she holds the position of Associate Professor at the INJC of UFRJ. Prof. Padilha is also leader of the Nutrition and Pediatrics Research Center (NUTPED), which is linked to the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics (maternal and child sector) and develops its care activities at the Instituto de Puericultura e Pediatria Martagão Gesteira (IPPMG/UFRJ), including participation in an outpatient clinic for nutritional support and diabetes. As a researcher, Prof. Padilha is accredited to the Postgraduate Program in Nutrition at INJC/UFRJ and in the Master's Program in Maternal and Child Health at IPPMG/UFRJ, and since 2020 she has been a Research Productivity fellow at CNPq. She is currently coordinator of the Integrated Multi-professional Residency Program in Child and Adolescent Health at IPPMG / UFRJ. She has experience in the field of Nutrition, with an emphasis on maternal and child nutrition, working mainly on the following topics: nutritional therapy in pediatrics, clinical nutrition in pediatrics, prenatal nutritional assistance and nutrition applied to chronic diseases in pediatrics.
Abhijit P Pakhare
Associate Professor of Community & Family Medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal. Involved in public health and health system research. Completed an extramural project funded by Indian Council of Medical Research on nutritional status of tribal adolescents. Currently working on community based interventions for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) risk factor reduction strategies.
Napoleón Pérez-Farinós
Dr. Napoleón Pérez-Farinós MD PhD, is a Professor at the Universidad de Málaga.
He is also Specialist In Preventive Medicine and Public Health and Master in Public Health.
Dr. Pérez-Farinós has worked as an Epidemiologist with communicable and non-communicable diseases, and recently as an expert in cardiovascular diseases prevention and childhood obesity prevention.
Jara Pérez-Jiménez
Researcher at the Institute of Food Science and Technology and Nutrition (ICTAN-CSIC), Madrid, Spain. Co-author of more than 70 papers published in JCR journals and book chapters in international editions. Member of the Editorial Board of Food Reserch International. Former member of the Committee of Experts in Human Nutrition, French Agency for Food Safety (ANSES).
Stevo Popovic
Stevo Popovic is a full professor at University of Montenegro who has 10+ years’ experience with particular focus on planning, conducting, and evaluating research studies dealing with health and exercise, which also include clinical trials. As a sports and exercise scientist he uses knowledge of how the body works to help people improve their health and sporting ability at large. However, he has also profound insight into physical anthropology, and understands the complexity of how physical activity affect the human body and its composition; but, also into social anthropology that helps to understand the social side of the same issues.
With a background as a Ph.D. from the University of Novi Sad and postdoc from the University of Ljubljana (ranked 1st in Slovenia, 326th in the global 2024 rating, and scored in the top 50% across 228 research topics), as well as a teacher and research at the University of Montenegro, he has achieved the following key competencies: knowledge of teaching and the ability to design courses, project and data management, study design expertise, excellent communication skills, and dissemination skills in both written and oral etc. He currently holds several leading positions in the national and international projects, as well as leading roles and memberships in the governing bodies of professional and scientific organizations. He is a former Dean of Faculty of Sport and Physical Education and Editor-in-Chief of University of Montenegro Press, both in two mandates, former member of HEPA Europe Steering Committee, FIEPS Board of Directors member and member of Montenegrin Academy of Science and Art (Centre for Young Scientists and Artists). On the other hand, among several other positions, he is currently a Co-Director of Balkan Institute of Science and Innovation and Associate Editor in British Journal of Sports Medicine (Physical Activity and Population Health section). Authored 82 articles in peer-reviewed journals indexed by Scopus database (22% as the first, 17% as the last, 52% as the co-author and 9% as the single author; 23 documents in top citation percentiles), several books, book chapters and conference papers and abstracts. Cited >6,600 times; H-index = 21; Field Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) = 5.16. As a supervisor or methodological consultant contributed to four PhD dissertations as well as many bachelor and master research theses. In 2020, on the Stanford/Elsevier’s list of top 2% researchers globally.
Joram M Posma
Lecturer in Cancer Informatics at Imperial College London and Fellow at Health Data Research (HDR) UK. Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC).
Albert Salas-Huetos
Dr. Salas-Huetos obtained his Bachelor of Science (Biology) from the Universitat de Girona (UdG) in 2009, his MSc in Cell Biology in 2010 at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), and his Ph.D. in Cell Biology (Cum-Laude and Extraordinary Doctorate Award) in 2016 at the same University (UAB). He joined the Genetics of Male Fertility group (UAB) as a PhD Student, and Human Nutrition Unit (Universitat Rovira i Virgili; URV) in 2016 as a Post-doctoral Fellowship. He spent a three-month Post-doctoral stay (September-December 2017) at Universidad de Guadalajara in Mexico. In 2018, he joined the University of Utah (USA) and in 2020 the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard University; USA) as a Post-doctoral Fellow. Nowadays he is a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University for the Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Post-doctoral Fellow at Universitat de Girona (JdlCI). Currently, he is working on different large international multicentric projects related to genetics and epigenetics of male (in)fertility, and nutrition. The main contributions of his scientific activity are reflected in a total of 63 original articles (Q1: 51/63; first or corresponding author: 23/63) in SCI/JCR-journals (+ 5 submitted), and 3 book chapter (+2 submitted). He has attended 9 national/international conferences as invited (plenary) speaker and he was the leading author of 10 contributions in international conferences (+15 as a collaborator author).
Jordi Salas-Salvadó
Professor of Nutrition and director of the Human Nutrition Unit (Rovira i Virgili University, Spain) and head of Nutrition of the Int. Med. Service (Sant Joan Hospital). This Unit is part of: a) Thematic Network of Mediterranean Diet and Cardiovascular Diseases, b) Health Diet in the Primary Prevention of Chronic Diseases: PREDIMED Network, and c) CIBERobn. Has directed 14 research projects funded by public bodies and 20 projects funded by the industries. He has published more than 250 papers.
Francesco Savino
Professor at the school of Pediatrics - Univ. Turin. Studying nutrition, metabolism of infancy in particular hormones such as Leptin, IGF-1, Ghrelin, Adiponectin. Takes interest in gastrointestinal and nutritional disorders. He studies in detail some aspects of gut microbiota of colicky infants such low level of lactobacilli and increased concentration of E.Coli. Performed relevant research on the effect of probiotics on colicky infants. Author of more than 120 scientific reports.
Helmut Schroder
Helmut Schröder, PhD in Human Biology, Diploma in Nutritional Sciences, Specialist in Nutritional Epidemiology is Head of the Cardiovascular Epidemiology and Nutrition Research Group,
CIBER Epidemiology and Public Health, and
Senior Investigator of the IMIM- Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain. His basic research interest is the analysis of lifestyle-disease relationships. This includes studies of the effects of nutrition on obesity and other cardiovascular risk factors. He is involved in several large epidemiological and clinical intervention studies.
Kenichi Shibuya
Professor of Kansai University.
Researching topics such as the Impact of exercise and physical activity on cognitive function, and on vascular health; the Impact of Flavors on taste perceptions; the Impact of Chewing on cerebral activation and Cognition; the Impact of Colors on taste perceptions