Assistant/Associate Professor of Maternal and Child Nutrition

University of Florida•Gainesville, FL

3d•Onsite

About The Position

The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) is creating an environment that affirms community across all dimensions. IFAS and the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition invites applications from qualified individuals for a tenure-track faculty position at the Assistant or Associate Professor level. The successful candidate will develop a collaborative, externally funded, and internationally engaged research program focused on maternal and child nutrition, with particular emphasis on improving health and developmental outcomes for women, infants, and young children in global and underserved settings. This is a 9-month, tenure-accruing position that will be 70% research (Florida Agricultural Experiment Station) and 30% teaching (College of Agricultural and Life Sciences) available in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, at the University of Florida, based in Gainesville, FL, expected to start in Spring 2027. The position is supported by a competitive salary with benefits including health, life, dental and vision insurance; flexible spending accounts; retirement options; paid holidays and wellness benefits. This assignment may be revised in accordance with the unit's needs. Tenure will accrue in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. The faculty member will seek contract and grant funding actively to support their program.

Requirements

Hold a doctoral degree, or a foreign equivalent, in nutrition, public health nutrition, nutritional epidemiology, community nutrition, global health, epidemiology, public health, or a closely related field by the position’s start date.
Demonstrate the ability to develop a research program involving human populations.
Demonstrate the ability to work effectively in multidisciplinary and cross-cultural collaborations.
Relevant research may include maternal and child nutrition, community or population nutrition, global nutrition, food and nutrition security, dietary interventions, or the evaluation of nutrition-related health outcomes.
Demonstrate a commitment to excellence in scholarship, teaching, and student mentoring.
Applicants at the Assistant Professor level should show strong potential to secure external research funding and develop an independent research program.
Applicants at the Associate Professor level should demonstrate an established record of scholarly productivity, external funding, student mentorship, and teaching appropriate to rank.
Be supportive of the mission of the Land-Grant system.
Have a commitment to UF core values.

Nice To Haves

Experience conducting nutrition or public health research in low- and middle-income countries or other resource-constrained settings.
Experience in designing and implementing human nutrition interventions, community-based trials, randomized controlled trials, or longitudinal studies involving women, infants, children, families, or communities.
Experience conducting community-engaged, implementation, translational, or population-based nutrition research.
Experience working with international universities, governments, nongovernmental organizations, community organizations, or other local partners.
Experience using dietary assessment methods, nutritional biomarkers, anthropometric measurements, developmental or health outcomes, or food-security indicators.
Experience applying quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods approaches, including nutritional epidemiology, meta-analysis, population-level modeling, data integration, or implementation evaluation.
Experience managing research activities across international sites, including ethical review, participant recruitment, research staff training, data quality assurance, and culturally appropriate community engagement.
Experience developing externally funded, interdisciplinary research programs addressing maternal and child nutrition, global health, or food and nutrition security.

Responsibilities

Develop a collaborative, externally funded, and internationally engaged research program focused on maternal and child nutrition.
Conduct research and integrative studies in global nutrition and health, public health nutrition, food and nutrition security, and maternal and child health.
Use interdisciplinary, systems-based, and population-level approaches in research.
Integrate primary data collection, epidemiology, intervention research, implementation science, dietary assessment, nutritional biomarkers, data science, and predictive modeling.
Engage in scholarly activities related to instruction, including teaching undergraduate and/or graduate courses.
Advise and mentor undergraduate and graduate students.
Participate in curriculum revision and enhancement.
Seek funding for the teaching program.
Supervise undergraduate and graduate research and creative work.
Publish teaching-related scholarship.
Produce learning tools.
Engage in professional development activities related to teaching and advising.
Support and participate in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences Honors Program, distance and international education.
Be supportive of and engaged in all three mission areas—Research, Teaching and Extension—regardless of the assignment split specified in the position description.
Seek contract and grant funding actively to support their program.