The MILQ Study Team
Lindsay H. Allen, PhD - Principal Investigator
Dr. Lindsay H. Allen, a Research Physiologist and former Center Director at the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Western Human Nutrition Research Center (WHNRC) in Davis, CA, and UC Davis Professor Emerita, has been a central figure in advancing understanding of micronutrient deficiencies and their impacts on maternal and child health resulting in 400 publications and 55,000 citations. Her recent work has focused on accurate assessment of micronutrients and other constituents in human milk, recognizing that traditional methods and limited datasets have often produced inconsistent and unreliable estimates.
To address these gaps, Dr. Allen led the Breastmilk Quality (BMQ) study, which established the analytical and methodological groundwork for creating Reference Values for nutrients resulting from the Mothers, Infants, and Lactation Quality (MILQ) Study. Dr. Allen has served as the President of the American Society for Nutrition and VP of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences, and is a Fellow of both organizations. She has been an advisor to WHO, FAO, the Micronutrient Forum, and NASEM.
Sophie E. Moore, PhD - Co-Investigator, lead The Gambia
Sophie Moore is Professor of Global Women and Children's Health in the Department of Women & Children's Health and an Honorary Associate Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). Her research examines how maternal, infant and childhood nutrition shape fetal and infant growth, immune and brain development, and long-term health. Much of her work is based at the MRC Unit The Gambia, with wider relevance to global nutritional vulnerabilities, and she has also worked or collaborated on projects in Tanzania, Bangladesh and Pakistan. She previously held senior roles at MRC Human Nutrition Research, the MRC International Nutrition Group at LSHTM, and MRC Keneba.
M. Munirul Islam, MBBS, PhD - Co-Investigator, lead Bangladesh
Dr. M. Munirul Islam, MBBS, PhD, is a Scientist and Senior Consultant in the Nutrition and Clinical Services Division at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) in Dhaka. With extensive experience spanning both clinical medicine and nutrition research, his work focuses on infant and child feeding, severe acute malnutrition, and the treatment of diarrhoeal disease in resource-limited settings. He has been a vocal advocate for evidence-based infant and young child feeding (IYCF) strategies in Bangladesh, and his research has contributed to national and global guidelines on the management of malnutrition in young children. His work has garnered over 5,500 citations, reflecting his standing as a leading researcher in South Asian child nutrition.
Gilberto Kac, PhD - Co-Investigator, lead Brazil (Rio)
Dr. Gilberto Kac is a full professor at the Josué de Castro Nutrition Institute (INJC) of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), where he earned his PhD in Public Health from the University of São Paulo and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford. In 2010, he established the Nutritional Epidemiology Observatory at UFRJ, a dynamic research group that has grown to over 30 researchers and fosters active collaborations with leading institutions across Brazil and internationally, including in the United States, England, Denmark, and Canada. A cornerstone of his scientific agenda is gestational weight gain (GWG): he spearheaded the development of evidence-based GWG charts tailored to Brazilian women, a landmark initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Building on this expertise, he was invited to serve as co-chair of the inaugural WHO Technical Advisory Group on Gestational Weight Gain, playing a pivotal role in shaping the Development of Global GWG Standards — a project with far-reaching implications for maternal and child health worldwide.
Kim F. Michaelsen, MD, DrMedSci - Co-Investigator, co-lead Denmark
Prof. Kim Fleischer Michaelsen, MD, DrMedSci, is Professor Emeritus in Paediatric Nutrition at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen. His research focuses on the effects of early nutrition — particularly breastfeeding and complementary feeding — on growth, body composition, development, and long-term health in both high- and low-income countries. He has served as advisor to the Danish Health Authority on infant and young child feeding and as a consultant for the WHO.
Christian Mølgaard, MD, PhD - Co-Investigator, co-lead Denmark
Prof. Christian Mølgaard, MD, PhD, is a Professor in Preventive and Clinical Pediatric Nutrition at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen, a position he has held since 2015. He also serves as a part-time Medical Consultant at the Pediatric Nutrition Unit at Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen. His research spans nutrition in infancy, childhood and adolescence, with particular focus on bone mineralization and body composition, glucose metabolism, obesity, and the treatment of malnutrition in low-income countries. He is member of a section conducts research in several low-income countries, primarily in Africa, alongside studies in high-income settings, especially Denmark. With over three decades of scientific work building on an earlier foundation in clinical pediatrics, Prof. Mølgaard brings a uniquely integrated perspective to child nutrition research.
United States | USDA, UC Davis Team Members
Daniela Hampel | Analytical Coordinator, PI of UC Davis based funds
Setareh Shahab-Ferdows | Study Coordinator/Manager
Katherine Wu | Research Staff Associate
Steven Nguyen | Support Scientist
Janet M Peerson | Lead Statistician, Reference Values
Andrew Oliver | Post Doc Multi-Omics
Carmen Arington | Post Doc Genetics
Xiupin Tan | Data Manager, Dietary Data
Charles D. Arnold | Statistician, Dietary Data
Former Team Members:
Elizabeth Ibarra, Jerico Leynes, Bryan Ramirez-Vargas, Katrina Tavenir, Ngoc Nguyen, Marcella Tea | Lab support
Laurynne Coats | Post Doc Microbiome
Aaron Stacy | PhD student HMO analyses
MILQ-Collaborators at the WHNRC:
Brian J. Bennett, PhD | Research Leader - Genomics
Dr. Brian Bennett is a nutrigenomics and systems genetics researcher who studies how diet interacts with genes, gene expression, metabolites, and biological networks to influence metabolic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and obesity. As Research Leader of the Obesity and Metabolism Unit at the WHNRC, his work focuses on identifying genetic and molecular mechanisms that shape diet-related health outcomes, including pathways regulating metabolites such as TMAO that are associated with cardiovascular disease. His interests in the MILQ Study focuses on identifying the genetic and epigenetic factors that help explain variation in human milk nutrient and metabolite composition across diverse populations. By linking maternal SNP and DNA methylation data with milk composition measures, his work aims to uncover genes, pathways, and genomic signatures that could inform more targeted, genotype-guided nutrition interventions for mothers and infants.
Danielle G. Lemay, PhD | Acting Research Leader - Multi-omics modeling
Dr. Danielle Lemay’s research examines how dietary components influence gastrointestinal health, host response, and inflammation, and whether these effects are shaped by the functional capacity of the gut microbiome. Her lab integrates nutrition science with advanced analytical tools such as sequencing technologies, functional metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metabolomics, machine learning, and other big data approaches to better understand diet–microbe–host interactions. Dr. Lemay leads the MILQ Study’s systems biology and multi-omics analyses, integrating maternal genetics, milk composition, milk bioactives, and infant microbiome data to identify the milk components and biological interactions most strongly associated with infant growth. Her work will help reveal how human milk and the infant gut microbiome contribute to growth and energy use during breastfeeding, generating evidence to inform future infant-feeding strategies for infants at risk of growth faltering.
Mary Kable, PhD | Research Scientist - Microbiome
Dr. Mary Kable's reserach interests focuses on how diet shapes the bacterial composition and function of the human gut microbiome, with a particular focus on how dietary fiber influences colonization resistance and susceptibility to foodborne pathogens. The lab combines human cohort studies, gut microbiota culture methods, and in vitro fermentation experiments to understand how dietary patterns and specific food components affect gut microbial communities and human health. Her work within the MILQ Study focuses on characterizing the infant fecal microbiome across the four study cohorts and examining how it relates to human milk oligosaccharides, infant health, morbidity, lactation stage, complementary feeding, and seasonality. In collaboration with Dr. Lemay and other MILQ investigators, her work will help define how human milk components and infant gut microbial communities interact to shape infant gut health and immune development.
The Gambia | Medical Research Council & King’s College London
Fanta Njie | Field Supervisor
Taryn Smith | Post Doc
Former Team Members:
Andrew Doel | PhD Student
Michelle Kumado | Data Manager
Bangladesh | International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research
Md. Mehedi Hasan | Data Manager
Abu Sayem Mirza Md. Hasibur Rahman | Research Investigator
Former Team Members:
Farhana K. Keya | Field Supervisor
Brazil | Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Daniela de Barros Mucci | Field Supervisor
Amanda C.C. Figueiredo | Post Doc
Adriana D. de Souza Campos | Post Doc
Gabriela Torres Silva | Post Doc
Bruna C. Schneider | Affiliated Post Doc
Former Team Members:
Erica Barros | Field Supervisor
Denmark | University of Copenhagen
Sophie H. Christensen | Post Doc
Former Team Members:
Kamilla G. Eriksen | Post Doc
Jack I. Lewis | PhD Student
Inge Rasmussen | Laboratory Staff
Analytical Partners
Dr. Maria Andersson | University Children's Hopsital, Zurich, Switzerland
Dr. Maria Andersson is a Senior Scientist at the Nutrition Research Unit, University Children’s Hospital Zurich, and a lecturer at ETH Zurich. Her research focuses on micronutrient malnutrition, with a particular emphasis on iodine nutrition. Her expertise includes metabolism, dietary requirements, the consequences of deficiency and excess, status biomarkers, food fortification, the efficacy of nutrition interventions, and public health program evaluation. Her team leads the assessment of iodine status in human milk, as well as in mothers and infants, as part of the MILQ Study.
Dr. Kerry S. Jones | University of Cambridge, UK
Kerry Jones is a senior researcher in the Nutritional Biomarker Laboratory (NBL), with extensive experience in measuring nutritional biomarkers in metabolic studies and large cohort studies in the UK and internationally. His research interests include vitamin D, thiamine, and folate, and his work has focused on stable isotope methods, nutrient metabolism, and the development of techniques to assess vitamin D status and requirements. As a MILQ Study partner, his group is responsible for the analysis of vitamin D in human milk.
Dr Anura V. Kurpad | St. John's Medical College, Bengaluru, India
Dr. Anura V. Kurpad is a Professor at St. John’s Medical College and a leading expert in nutritional physiology and public health nutrition. His work focuses on macro- and micronutrient requirements throughout the life course. His expertise includes the use of stable isotopes to evaluate nutrient requirements, adaptation to low nutrient intakes, nutrient bioavailability, and the outcomes of nutritional interventions. As a MILQ Study partner, his team is responsible for the assessment of milk volume assessment using the dose-to-mother (DTM) method.
Carlito Lebrilla, Ph.D. | University of California, Davis
Dr. Carlito B. Lebrilla is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry at UC Davis. His group develops analytical tools based on advanced separation techniques and mass spectrometry for research in nutrition and disease, and is pioneering glycomic approaches for early diagnosis. In nutrition, his research focuses on human milk as the ideal food and on identifying its bioactive components. The group’s expertise in oligosaccharides and the glycosylation of proteins and lipids spans both instrument development and biological discovery. As part of the MILQ Study, his group leads the analysis of human milk oligosaccharides and proteomics.