Khristopher Nicholas

Khristopher Nicholas is an interdisciplinary food systems researcher interested in understanding how human behavior interacts with environmental determinants of health. Khristopher’s research goals are to (a) characterize how ‘where’ shapes ‘what’ we eat and (b) understand the role of human behavior throughout this process. The first component of this research is defining and measuring spatial dimensions of food environments as the key engagement point between individuals and their food systems. The second component of this research employs qualitative methodologies to center human behavior and lived experiences as crucial (and often overlooked) components of food systems research. Khristopher holds a PhD in Nutrition from UNC Chapel Hill, where he employed mixed methodology to examine diet outcomes of food environments in the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador. Born in Trinidad and Tobago and raised in South Florida, Khristopher is passionate about food system advocacy both locally and globally, ranging from small island settings such as the Galápagos islands to historically excluded communities within the United States. As a postdoc in the Golden Lab, Khristopher is studying human-environment interactions through social-ecological traps in Madagascar.