Liz Gearan is a nutrition researcher with deep expertise in evaluating federal nutrition assistance programs, particularly the school meal programs. Since joining Mathematica in 2005, she has held key leadership roles on numerous nutrition projects for the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Most notably, Ms. Gearan has served as the deputy project director on all iterations of the School Nutrition and Meal Cost Studies (SNMCS), which provide FNS and policymakers with comprehensive insights into the nutritional quality and cost of school meals, plate waste, and students’ dietary intakes.
Ms. Gearan specializes in dietary assessment methodology and is an expert in collecting, processing, and analyzing dietary intake data and menu data. She has extensive experience leading quantitative analyses to examine nutrition-related outcomes for program menus and dietary intakes across a range of populations—from infants and toddlers to older adults—including estimating Healthy Eating Index (HEI) scores, usual nutrient and food group intakes, and assessing compliance with federal nutrition standards.
Her research has been published in journals such as the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Nutrients, and the Journal of Adolescent Health. Before joining Mathematica, Ms. Gearan worked as a nutritionist at a community health center in Boston, MA. She is a former registered dietitian and holds an M.S. in Nutrition and Health Promotion from Simmons University and a B.S. in Nutritional Sciences from Cornell University.
Updated nutrition standards called for in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA) have made school meals significantly healthier, according to a recent article.
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