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June 4, 2025

Jane Francis receives 2025 Early Career Scholar Award

We are pleased to announce that Jane Francis, PhD, RD, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Fed Family Lab, at Acadia University, in Nova Scotia, is the 2025 recipient of the Early Career Scholar Award at the Vanier Institute of the Family. 

The Fed Family Lab is a space for training and collaborative multi-disciplinary research to advance the study of family and childhood food insecurity and share evidence for policy change to strengthen the wellbeing of families.  

Dr. Francis’s research is highly significant with its focus on improving nutrition and reducing health disparities among socially and/or economically vulnerable families in Canada. Specifically, she is a stellar scholar trained in nutrition science (PhD, University of Toronto, 2021) and she is an emerging leader in the new interdisciplinary field of food insecurity during the first 2001 days of life. 

The judges evaluated presentations based on scientific merit, contributions to the field, and policy and programming implications in the Canadian context. Look for a profile of this research in a Researcher Spotlight in the upcoming months, as well as a Research Summary.