Students and Associated Faculty

Yarisbel Melo Herrera

Yarisbel Melo Herrera is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Ph.D. Candidate in Health Sciences at the University of Rhode Island. Her research interests include perinatal nutrition, women’s health, federal nutrition programs, and health equity. Her dissertation focuses on improving the diet quality of WIC-participating women using choice architecture techniques in online grocery environments.

As a Latina of color, Yarisbel is also passionate about helping reduce health disparities in the Hispanic/Latinx community and promoting diversity and inclusion in research and the dietetics profession.

Qisi Yao

Qisi Yao is a 3rd year doctoral student and teaching assistant in the Department of Nutrition. She is interested in chronic disease prevention and management in high-risk populations through diet quality improvement, including understanding the impact of food environments on consumer grocery purchase quality, the effect of ultra-processed foods intake and risk of obesity and obesity-related outcomes, and adherence to recommended dietary patterns and stroke recurrence prevention. Qisi is passionate about translating nutritional science knowledge into public health policies with the aim to promote population health and equity. Before coming to URI, she worked at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute on breast cancer prevention and early detection. Qisi completed her BS in Neuroscience at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and her MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Tufts University

Terpase Gbaa

Stephen Terpase Gbaa is a first-year Ph.D. student in Health Science in the Department of Nutrition, University of Rhode Island. He is a First-Year Doctorate Fellow working under Prof. Maya Vadiveloo’s Big Data and Eating Decisions Lab. His research interests include ultra-processed foods and plant-based foods.
Terpase received his Bachelor of Science in Food Science and Technology in 2015 from the University of Agriculture, Makurdi. In 2021 Terpase completed his Master of Science in Food Processing Technology from Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria, which was funded by World Bank’s African Center of Excellence for the Control of Post-harvested Loses at Center for Food Technology and Research, Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria. His thesis examined the nutritional improvement of plant-based (cereal-based) food in North-central Nigeria to reduce protein-energy malnutrition.
Prior to enrolling in the University of Rhode Island Graduate program, Terpase worked in the Food and Beverage industry as a Quality Control/Quality Assurance Supervisor at Planet Bottling Company Nigeria, the producer of American Cola and Planet Products. He can be reached at terpase.gbaa@uri.edu

Undergraduate Students

Byte Lab Alumni

Haley Parker

Haley Parker is a postdoctoral researcher and adjunct faculty at URI who completed her PhD in 2022. Her dissertation research supported by a 2-year Jean Hankin predoctoral award focused on using applications of machine learning to assess diet quality and associations with total and cardiovascular mortality. She also completed URI’s MS/DI program in 2018, completing her thesis in the Byte lab where her research focused on exploring how maternal characteristics influenced diet quality during pregnancy in the Infant Feeding Practices Survey II (IFPS II) cohort. She earned her registered dietitian credential in 2018. Haley completed her BS in Nutrition at Montana State University – Bozeman, graduating with highest honors. She is interested in novel methodology in dietary assessment, population-level associations between diet and chronic disease, and maternal diet and infant outcomes.

Xintong (Cynthia) Guan

Xintong (Cynthia) Guan graduated with a doctoral degree in Marketing at the University of Rhode Island in 2021. Her research interest is in customer decision-making at the intersection of marketing and health. Using secondary data from a randomized controlled trial, her dissertation explored the influence of a personalized healthy dietary incentive campaign on retailer-relevant metrics. Prior to joining the doctoral program at URI, she worked as a data programmer for a pharmaceutical company. Ms. Guan has a B.A. in Marketing and a M.S. in Financial Economics.

Carolina de Aruajo

Carolina de Aruajo completed the combined dietetic internship/MS program at URI in 2021. Carolina has worked as an undergraduate research assistant in the Byte lab for the past year and is now beginning her graduate research focused on the role of ultraprocessed foods in short- and long-term weight loss within the 2-year Pounds Lost clinical trial.

Yuyao Huang

Yuyao Huang completed the combined dietetic internship/MS program at URI in 2019. During her 2-years in the lab, her thesis research examined the impact of new SNAP requirements for small food stores in Providence, RI. She earned her registered dietitian credential in 2019 and is currently working full-time as a registered dietitian in a skilled nursing facility in Massachusetts.

Shannon Zimmerman

Shannon Zimmerman completed her BS in Dietetics with a minor in Kinesiology and she hopes to pair her knowledge as a future Registered Dietitian with exercise science. Her interests include childhood nutrition, eating disorders and socioeconomic disparities in obesity.

Maria Cherry

Maria Cherry completed her BS in dietetics and an honors thesis in 2022. She is interested in food insecurity, sustainability, food habits, and how cultures and food environments influence diet. She plans to complete her dietetic internship after graduation and pursue a masters degree to continue her education.

Elie Perraud

Elie Perraud joined the Byte lab as visiting MS student from AgroParis Tech from 2018-2019 , and quickly became involved with numerous Byte lab projects including the SmartCart study, projects in the Food Acquisition and Purchase Study, and the Infant Feeding Practices II cohort. He continues to work with the group remotely from Paris as he completes his MS degree and considers doctoral study.