Sameera Talegawkar

Sameera Talegawkar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences. Dr. Talegawkar is also Affiliated Faculty at the Sumner Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness and holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

Dr. Talegawkar’s research focuses on the role of diet and other lifestyle predictors on aging related outcomes, and on the role of diet on health disparities experienced by under-served and minority populations. She has expertise in nutritional assessment in diverse populations. Currently, she leads a project examining the role of dietary trajectories over the adult life course with physical function, disability, and mortality. She also serves as a co-investigator on a project in Odisha, India, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that seeks to change social norms surrounding behaviors to reducing anemia among women of reproductive age. Dr. Talegawkar is the co-chair of the Jackson Heart Study Nutrition and Physical Activity Working Group, and a member of the study's scientific council.

Dr. Talegawkar has served as the PI or co-I on research funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, the World Health Organization, HarvestPlus and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She teaches at the undergraduate and graduate level, including Assessment of Nutritional Status (EXNS 2120) and Epidemiology of Aging (PUBH 6248).

Prior to joining the faculty at the GWU in 2015, Dr. Talegawkar was an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University where she currently holds an adjunct appointment. She earned her Doctor of Philosophy in Nutritional Epidemiology from the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and completed her post-doctoral training at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging.