The Center for Health Promotion and Health Equity is pleased to welcome Dr. Meredith T. Niles, an internationally recognized scholar whose work sits at the intersection of food systems, climate change, public health and equity.
Dr. Niles’ interdisciplinary research closely aligns with the mission of CHPHE, integrating behavioral science, community engagement, and policy relevant research to address the systems driving health inequities. Her work advances sustainable food security while improving health, environmental and rural livelihood outcomes in agriculture and food systems, particularly in low-income, rural, and food insecure communities, and bridges discovery, intervention, and policy to promote health equity and well-being across communities.
Prior to joining Brown, Dr. Niles spent the past decade at the University of Vermont (UVM), where she served as the Green and Gold Robert L. Bickford Endowed Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences and the Food Systems Program. During her tenure, she held several key leadership roles, including Acting Director of the Gund Institute for Environment in 2023 and Associate Director of the Food Systems Research Center from 2021–2023, a collaborative initiative with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service.
Dr. Niles’ scholarship is both expansive and impactful. She has secured more than $32 million in research funding and authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications, along with numerous policy briefs and government reports that inform food, agriculture, climate, and public health policy in the United States and internationally. She was the founding director of the National Food Access and COVID Research Team (NFACT), a nationwide consortium of 18 study sites and research organizations that examined food security, nutrition, and health impacts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Her work has been recognized with numerous honors, including being named an Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine Fellow by the National Academy of Medicine (2022–2025) and receiving the Hubert W. Vogelmann Award for Excellence in Research and Scholarship from UVM in 2024.
Dr. Niles holds a B.A. in Political Science, with honors in Environmental Studies, from The Catholic University of America, and a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of California, Davis, with a focus on sustainable agriculture and environmental policy. She completed a Giorgio Ruffolo Sustainability Science Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where her research examined climate change impacts on smallholder farmer food security.
Before entering academia, Dr. Niles worked in public health at the U.S. Department of State on the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and with several environmental and food systems nonprofit organizations. She has since served as a consultant and advisor to numerous international and federal agencies, including the US Department of Agriculture, US Agency for International Development,The World Resources Institute, Environmental Defense Fund, and the Global Alliance for the Future of Food.
A dedicated advocate for open and equitable scholarship, Dr. Niles served on the Board of Directors of the Public Library of Science (PLOS) from 2014 to 2022 and continues to advance open scholarship policies and practices within and beyond academic institutions to advance the democratization of knowledge and community-engaged research.
Outside of her professional work, Dr. Niles enjoys growing food, running, cooking, college basketball, and spending time outdoors with her husband, two children, and dog.