Kristen Cooksey Stowers, PhD

Assistant Professor

Department of Allied Health Sciences

Research Overview

Dr. Kristen Cooksey Stowers is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Allied Health Sciences at the University of Connecticut, focusing on research to address how public policy influences inequities in obesity prevalence through community food retail environments that are considered “food swamps.”

Dr. Cooksey Stowers earned her B.S. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Master’s in Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University. She earned her Ph.D. in Public Policy in 2016 from Duke University, where she was a Dean’s Graduate Fellow and National Institutes of Health Pre-doctoral Fellow with the Add Health Parent Study. Her dissertation examined zoning restrictions on fast food as an obesity prevention strategy.

Dr. Cooksey Stowers’ research as an InCHIP affiliate will focus on strategies to improve the nutritional quality of foods that flow through the emergency food system, with an emphasis on food banks.

Education

BS Agriculture and Consumer Economics 2010
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

MPP (Masters in Public Policy) Certificate in Health Policy
Bloomberg School of Public Health 2012 Johns Hopkins University

PhD in Public Policy 2016
Duke University

Recent/Selected Publications

PubMed