Dr. Nicolle Fernandes is an Associate Professor and Director of the Nutrition and Culinary Management Program within the Health Sciences Department at LaGuardia Community College. Her research interests include impact of nutrition in cancer, obesity, falls and fracture in the geriatric population, herbs and spices, culinary nutrition, hunger, food insecurity and sustainability in the food arena. She received her Ph.D. in Nutrition from Texas Woman’s University and worked on dδ-Tocotrienol-mediated cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in human melanoma and prostate cancer cell lines. She completed her postdoc at Nestlé Nutrition R&D Centers in Hopkins, Minnesota and worked in the Aging Care platform. Dr. Fernandes is also a Registered Dietitian through the Commission on Dietetic Registration, the credentialing agency for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in the Unites States and in India through the Indian Dietetic Association. She was a practicing Dietitian in India and began teaching there in 2003 at the Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition in Dadar, Mumbai.