NeuroNutrition: Advancing Brain Health Through Science From Gestation to Childhood

Michael K Georgieff, MD

Executive Vice Chair & Martin Lenz Harrison Land Grant Professor 
Division of Neonatology 
Faculty, Department of Pediatrics 
Director, Center for Neurobehavioral Development
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN, USA 

Dr Michael K Georgieff holds the position of the Martin Lenz Harrison Land Grant Chair in Pediatrics. He is a Professor of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Developmental Psychology, the Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, and the Director of the Center for Neurobehavioral Development. He received his MD from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He served his internship, residency and neonatal fellowship at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a fellowship in neonatology at the University of Minnesota. In addition to caring for patients on the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Dr Georgieff is Director of the NICU Follow-up Program. Dr Georgieff’s research focuses on fetal/neonatal nutrition and brain development, specifically on the effect of early life iron nutrition and neurocognitive function. He has been continuously funded in this field by the National Institutes of Health for 35 years and has published over 300 scientific articles. He advises the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Institutes of Health and UNICEF on nutrition and early child development.

Paige Berger, PhD, RDN

Investigator of Pediatrics, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Instructor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA, USA

Dr Paige Berger is a PhD-investigator and registered dietitian who has devoted her career to studying the nutritional determinants of early growth and brain development. Dr Berger received her doctorate in Nutritional Sciences from The University of Georgia. She completed postdoctoral fellowships with Dr Leann Birch at The University of Georgia (2015-2016) and Dr Michael Goran at The University of Southern California/Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (2016-2022). Dr Berger currently holds a faculty appointment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. The goal of Dr Berger’s research is to understand human milk biology and determine its influences on infant growth, brain development, and cognitive functioning. She aims to explicate the factors in human milk that shape the structure of the brain, the foundational framework for future learning and memory. Dr Berger’s work has shown that exposure to simple and complex carbohydrates in the intra-uterine environment and through breastfeeding associates with brain development using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in full-term infants. She has also shown that exposure to the same simple and complex carbohydrates associates with cognitive capacities at 24 months of age. Her current NIH awarded research builds on previous findings and examines the role of human milk oligosaccharides on brain growth and maturation in very preterm infants. She has also received funding to expand her work to the human milk microbiome. Ultimately, Dr Berger’s findings may inform nutritional care and supplementation strategies among very preterm infants, to maximize therapeutic potential in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Robert Murray, MD, FAAP

Professor of Pediatrics, College of Medicine 
Associate Member, Primary Food Innovation Center
The Ohio State University 
Columbus, OH, USA

Robert Murray, MD, is an academic professor of pediatrics in the College of Medicine at The Ohio State University. He completed his fellowship in Pediatric Gastroenterology at Children’s Hospital, Columbus, Ohio in 1985. Since then, he has spent more than 25 years in the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. 

Prof Murray’s primary areas of focus include biomedical nutrition and pediatric manifestations of malnutrition. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles, including most recently “A First Step Toward Eliminating Malnutrition: A Proposal for Universal Screening”, which was published in Pediatric Practice in Nutrition and Dietary Supplements. He has contributed to numerous books and public education projects, as well as to projects involving pediatric wasting, stunting, and obesity. Dr Murray has served in many organizations; including but not limited to a member of the National Dairy Council Nutrition Advisory Committee, a member of the Children’s Hunger Alliance Governing Board, the vice-chair of the board of Action for Healthy Kids, and a collaborator with Abbott Nutrition International on nutrition education for pediatric practitioners. 

Prof Murray has received several awards. Most recently, he was a 2016 finalist for the Pathway to Populations Health Award for Columbus CEO Magazine. He was a recipient of the 2015 Child Advocate of the Year Award for Ohio Voices for Children. In 2008, he received a Special Achievement Award for obesity initiatives and Chairperson of the Year Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Within the AAP, Dr Murray is currently their representative to the National Dairy Council Health Advisory Committee. He is the former chair of the AAP Council on School Health and is a past president of the Ohio Chapter of the AAP.