Sara Moukarzel
Post-Doctoral Researcher
- Profile
Profile
Sara Moukarzel, PhD., received her doctorate degree in human nutrition from the University of British Columbia (UBC)- Canada, under the mentorship of the late Dr. Sheila Innis, where she developed a laboratory method to measure minor fat molecules in human milk. She had identified that these unique molecules alter brain composition in animal models of normal human development. Her masters research with Dr. Susan Carlson at the University of Kansas Medical Center focused on the relationship between maternal exposures during pregnancy and infant infections. Her graduate education was funded through the prestigious Fulbright Program- US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and through a Four-Year Doctoral Fellowship-UBC.
In parallel to her curiosity to discover how human milk promotes infant development, Sara’s passion is to research and help implement effective methods to inform health care professionals and the public about human milk research findings. As postdoctoral research under the mentorship of Dr. Alan Daly, Sara is currently conducting research in her home country Lebanon and in San Diego to better understand the role of the social network in breastfeeding promotion and knowledge exchange among medical trainees. Sara is also Executive Director at the UCSD Larsson-Rosenquist Mother-Milk-Infant Center of Research Excellence. In Lebanon, she teaches several graduate nutrition courses at Notre Dame University.
