Carolyn Gunther, PhD, RDN, LD, The Ohio State University, College of Nursing

Dr. Gunther is a tenured associate professor in the College of Nursing at The Ohio State University, and a clinical associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics in the College of Medicine. She is a classically trained nutrition scientist, with a broad background that spans the scholarly breadth of the nutrition discipline from basic to clinical and applied. The common thread across the three domains is the focus on nutritionally vulnerable populations—that is, children. Rooted in a social ecological perspective, her program of research focuses on identifying and scaling equitable multi-level—individual, interpersonal, community, and policy—solutions that secure children’s nutritional health. With underpinnings from the Social Cognitive Theory, the central focus is childhood obesity prevention, within three primary themes: accelerated summer-time gains in BMI; family mealtime routines; and teen independent eating occasions. Continuously funded by federal support (USDA and NIH) for the past near decade, her research has led to significant societal impacts including shifts in policy, updated field recommendations, and sustained community uptake of interventions. Notably, in 2025 she was name a Fellow by the American Society for Nutrition based on the impact of her research.

Their research on the summer window of risk – specifically accelerated weight gain, elevated food insecurity, and poor dietary quality in children and teens – has opened new pathways to examine dual-impact interventions that coordinate existing federal nutrition and non-nutrition policies for increased uptake of historically lagging out-of-school child meal programs.