Emily Sonestedt. Principal Investigator.
Emily Sonestedt holds a MSc in Nutrition from Stockholm University (2003), a PhD in Public Health and Nutritional Epidemiology from Lund University (2009). Since 2015, Emily is an associate professor (docent) in Nutritional Epidemiology. In 2017, Emily became the head of the Nutritional Epidemiology research group and is currently the formal main supervisor of four PhD students.
Emily was the chairperson of the carbohydrate expert group on the revision of the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations where a systematic literature review was performed on sugar and health effects (Sonestedt et al, 2012). In 2010, Emily joined the lab of Professor Ronald Krauss in Oakland (California, USA) as a visiting researcher. To this date, Emily has 149 publications in international peer-reviewed journals (16 as a fist author and 12 as senior last author) with an h-index of 38. Emily is currently involved in several high impact international collaborations, including NCD risk factor collaboration, CHARGE, EPIC and STROBE-nut.
Already during her PhD, Emily had a strong research interest in carbohydrate quality, fiber, and the influence of microbiota on health. The title of Emily’s thesis was “Plant foods, plasma enterolactone and breast cancer – with a focus on estrogen receptor status and genetic variation” (PI: Elisabet Wirfält). Emily gained extensive knowledge in genetic studies and changed focus from breast cancer to cardiovascular disease, obesity and type 2 diabetes, during her postdoctoral fellowship in Professor Marju Orho-Melander’s research group.
Stina R
amne. PhD, affiliated researcher
Stina Ramne is a registered dietitian and holds a MSc in Clinical Nutrition from University of Gothenburg (2017). In 2017, Stina began her PhD studies in the Nutritional Epidemiology group. Her projects study the link between consumption of added sugars and risk of cardiometabolic disease through various potential pathways, including inflammatory pathways and the gut microbiota.
In 2019, Stina was appointed as president of the Southern Swedish Nutrition Society (Swedish: Sydsvensk Förening för Nutrition (SFN)), a post that she still holds to this day.
Stina’s main interest has always been in the prevention of obesity and diabetes, and related diseases. Stina’s most recent interest is in the discovery of objective measurements of sugar intake in the form of nutritional biomarkers, such as urinary sucrose and fructose.
Kjell Olsson. PhD Student.
Kjell Olsson is a registered dietitian. He holds a BSc in Dietetics from Umeå University (2005) and a MSc in Public Health (MPH) from Lund University (2015). In 2017, Kjell began his part-time PhD studies in the Nutritional Epidemiology group.
Kjell has previous experience working in primary, elderly, and tertiary care, as well as managing a project with the aim to improve nutritional care for the elderly. Kjell has also worked as a project coordinator for the unit of Social Medicine and Global Health at Lund University. Since autumn of 2016, Kjell has been working for Region Skåne as a project leader for the Centre of Excellence focusing on lifestyle and disease prevention (Kunskapscentrum).
Kjell’s PhD research is mainly focused on carbohydrate quality and type 2 diabetes, specifically the types of carbohydrates and dietary patterns that may be associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.
Esther González-Padilla. PhD, affiliated researcher.
Esther González-Padilla holds a degree in Medicine from University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain) (2015) and a MSc in Public Health (MPH) from Lund University (2018). In 2018, Esther began her PhD studies in the Nutritional Epidemiology group. Her projects focus on added sugar intake and disease as well as genetic epidemiology.
Esther has collaborated with the Nutrition Group at the Institute of Biomedical and Health Sciences (IUIBS) with the data collection for PREDIMED plus study (cardiovascular disease prevention with Mediterranean Diet), as well as to launch a project promoting food sustainability in Gran Canaria (La Isla en Tu Plato – The Island on Your Plate), whilst organising several public outreach activities. In 2010, Esther won a scholarship to take part on a surgery training programme at the University of Texas at San Antonio (USA). In 2009, Esther won the Young Researcher Award for her first original study, done in collaboration with the Bone Metabolism Unit at University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria with projects concerning vitamin D and calcium. Currently, Esther is the chairperson of the DPLU PhD Student network and a representative of the Medical PhD Student Union.
Esther’s PhD research is mainly focused on sugar intake and risk markers for disease. Her main interests lie within nutrition (particularly sugar intake), preventive medicine, public health and science communication.
Anna Stubbendorff. PhD Student.
Anna Stubbendorff is a registered dietitian. She holds BSc in Media and Communication from Lund University (2003), a BSc in Clinical Nutrition from Suhr’s Metropolitan University College in Copenhagen (2009). Additionally, Anna has taken several postgraduate courses in the field of nutrition. In 2019, Anna began her PhD studies in the Nutritional Epidemiology group. Her projects focus on sustainable nutrition.
Anna has experience working in a clinical setting developing more sustainable food programmes in hospitals. Anna has also been a program manager for the Swedish Association of Clinical Dietitians with projects addressing public health, cancer prevention, non-communicable diseases and sustainable food consumption. Anna has prior NGO experience working with sustainability and human rights in India.
Anna’s PhD research is focused on perspectives of health and climate and inequalities in health. Anna is enrolled in the Agenda 2030 Graduate School. She will examine sustainable nutrition within the broader framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Sara Bergwall. PhD Student.
Sara Bergwall holds a Bsc in Development Studies and a Msc in Public Health (MPH), both from Lund University. She has also taken numerous extracurricular courses in statistics and statistical software. She began her PhD studies in late 2017 with a general focus on diet, physical activity and cardiovacular disease.
Sara began her research career as a summer resarch fellow in 2017 with a project on diet quality and abdominal aortic aneurysm. However, it was already when writing the thesis at the MPH programme that her interest for research began. She conducted a questionnaire study aimed to elucidate if physical activity on prescription increased overall rates of physical activity in a sedentary population.
Her main interests are epidemiology and prevention, in particular physical activity. She also enjoys supervising and mentoring students.
Suzanne Janzi. PhD student.
Suzanne Janzi holds a BSc in Nutrition from Stockholm University (2018) and a MSc in Nutrition science from the Karolinska Institute (2019). During her studies, Suzanne wrote her thesis project in the Nutritional Epidemiology group. During her Bachelor’s thesis she studied the association between dietary fiber intake and risk of incident aortic stenosis and in her Master’s thesis the association between added sugar intake and several cardiovascular diseases. Suzanne joined the Nutritional Epidemiology group as a Project Assistant in 2020 to delve deeper into studying these associations. She is from 2021 a PhD student in the group.
Suzanne has experience working as a laboratory engineer at Karolinska University Hospital and has also been a teaching assistant for an online nutrition course given at the Karolinska Institute.
Suzanne’s interests within her field of work include understanding the associations between what we eat and our health, from the molecular aspects to the societal impact, and to be able to package the knowledge in a way that allows effective communication, not only to the scientific community, but to the broader public as well.