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Are you an undergraduate student looking for a paid internship?
Applications are currently open to the (Fall 2025 - Spring 2026) USDA REEU Nutrition BEST Program!
The program supports underrepresented students who are transferred from community colleges or from Texas Tech University (TTU) to engage in research and internship opportunities while improving their skills in community nutrition, agriculture, health, and obesity prevention. If you have any questions about how to participate, what it is, and our goals, don't hesitate to contact us.
News & Announcements
Let us come together to celebrate and honor some of our most esteemed ORI members who have recently achieved remarkable milestones in their respective fields!
- 2025 - 10th Annual Meeting
- Student Poster Competition Winners!
- Undergraduate: Elizabeth L. Jeffery (1st TTU Lubbock), Dylan Jenkins (2nd TTU Lubbock)
- Graduate: Shahira Helal Arzoo (1st TTU Lubbock), Rubaia Tasmin (2nd TTU Lubbock), Benjamin Barr (3rd TTU Lubbock)
- Student GNO: Hazera Binte Sufian (1st TTU Lubbock), Maryam Seifishahpar (2nd TTU Lubbock), Andrea Sosa-Holwerda (3rd TTU Lubbock)
- Graduate (GSBS): Brady Miller (1st TTUHSC Lubbock), Alexis Rodriguez (2nd TTUHSC Lubbock)
- Post Doc (GSBS): Rachel Babcock (1st TTUHSC Lubbock)
- Medical Students: Shahira Helal Arzoo (1st TTUHSC Lubbock), Rubaia Tasmin (2nd TTUHSC Lubbock), Benjamin Barr (3rd TTUHSC Lubbock)
- Impact Talk Competition Winners! Ashti Morovati (1st TTU Lubbock), Hushyar Azari (2nd TTU Lubbock), Fereshteh Dehghani (3rd TTU Lubbock)
- Student Poster Competition Winners!
- We want to celebrate with Dr. Danielle E. Levitt, along with Dr. Hui-Ying Luk of the Department of Kinesiology & Sport Management at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, for being awarded an R01 from the National Institute on Aging (2024-2029) for $3,501,732 with additional TTU and TTUHSC support from Drs. Fangyuan Zhang as Co-Investigator, Heather Vellers as Collaborator, Leslie Shen as Consultant, and Rama Chemitiganti as Safety Officer. The overarching goal of this project is to test local heat therapy as an alternative method to improve muscle architecture, glycemic control, and subsequent exercise adaptations and decrease frailty risk in older adults with prediabetes, with TRPV1 as an underlying mechanism, including a 2-phase clinical trial complemented by cell culture-based mechanistic studies. In addition, she received the Young Investigator grant ($24,000) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association Foundation; Co-I Drs. Jacob Mota, Arturo Figueroa, and collaborators Jonathan Singer and Marc Lochbaum. Resveratrol-mediated changes in extracellular vesicle microRNA cargo as a novel contributor to resistance training-induced skeletal muscle adaptations in older adults. They aim to determine resistance training- and resveratrol-mediated changes in the miRNA profile of circulating extracellular vesicles and their relationship with muscle strength and hypertrophy adaptations in older adults.
- Let’s congratulate our esteemed Dr. Munmun Chattopadhyay, who received a $3.1M National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 grant at Texas Tech Health El Paso jointly with the University of Texas at Dallas to uncover new treatments for diabetic painful neuropathy that could potentially reduce reliance on opioids.
- We are thrilled to announce the appointment of Dr. Naïma Moustaïd-Moussa as the inaugural executive director of the Institute for One Health Innovation (OHI), effective July 1. This appointment represents a unique collaborative effort between Texas Tech University and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center to collectively advance the health of animals, humans and our ecosystem. Dr. Moustaïd-Moussa's wealth of experience and expertise will be instrumental in forging programs and opportunities to unify all facets of One Health research across the Texas Tech University System.
- The Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB) has chosen to honor Dr. Mary Murimi with the Helen Denning Ullrich Annual Award for Lifetime Excellence in Nutrition Education, a highly esteemed recognition in our field. This award is a testament to her exceptional contributions and 20-plus years of exemplary service in the field of Nutrition Education and Behavior.
- Our very own Dr. Jannette M. Dufour has been honored with the TTUHSC SOM Dean’s Basic Science Teaching Award for Year One and the TTUHSC GSBS Dean’s Teaching Award for Graduate Medical Education Sciences, adding to her already impressive list of accolades: Cover Photo in Biomedicines and Women in Andrology Lecture from the American Society for Andrology.
Center of Excellence in Obesity and Cardiometabolic Research
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Email
obesity.ori@ttu.edu